


Two Guys and a Girl

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Series: Mercverse stories [5]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe, Awkward Crush, Coming of Age, Demons, Family, Family Secrets, Father-Daughter Relationship, First Crush, Friendship, Gen, Ghosts, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Torture, Justice, Male-Female Friendship, Mercverse, Politics, Shinra Mansion is a very creepy house, Small Towns, Stealth Crossover, Unrequited Crush, country vs. city, development of a social conscience, giving honor to the dead, horrible trophy rooms, implied/offscreen murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-12
Updated: 2008-02-03
Packaged: 2017-12-26 05:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tifa Lockhart meets Zack and Cloud Strife outside Nibelheim, she's only expecting a minor break in the routine of a small mountain village.  She gets much more than that.  A story about friendship, secrets, growing up, and the birth of one girl's social conscience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in the [Mercverse AU](http://mercverse.livejournal.com/) ([which has since moved to Insane Journal](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/mercverse/)), created by [Katrina](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Katrina/profile), aka [icedark_elf](http://icedark-elf.insanejournal.com/). Here is her summary of the AU: 
> 
> _The Mercverse is a FF7 AU world spawned by various pics people sent me or I found roaming the mass of sites I can't understand. They were full of shinies. Some of the pics are[here](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v308/sinfulgreed/Mercs/). If you know of others, send them my way and I'll be more than willing to go "ooh, shiny" and probably write more fic._
> 
> _The universe is completely open. The only canon is the following: Cloud is immortal, Sephiroth is a mage adept, Zack is more than human, and Vincent and Chaos are half-demon twin brothers. Other than that...have at thee. Want to bring in other fandoms, ignore everything else besides what I just said was canon, or anything else? Feel free to do so._
> 
> The participating authors later agreed on some other bits of canon -- Cloud is obsessed with tea; Zack was a street rat in Midgar before Cloud adopted him; Cloud is related to the Shinra royal family; Aeris and Tifa work in a nightclub; the world is an uneasy balance of fantasy and high-tech; neither demons nor Cetra are native to this world, and a couple thousand years ago they fought a massive war; Cloud is probably Jenova's grandson -- but those are less 'fixed,' so to speak. (Also, a lot of the backstory was my own invention, so I'm never sure how firmly it was adopted by other participants.)

"You look like life just kicked you in the teeth. Want to talk about it?"

Tifa jerked her head up at the unexpected voice, and then stared blankly at the boy standing in front of her on the road to the old Shinra mansion. He was tall, and probably a couple years older than her, and she had never seen him before in her life. He was also wearing a sword belted around his waist.

Tifa shifted into a loose stance and curled one hand into a fist, just in case. It wasn't smart for a girl to be alone with strangers, especially not once she started getting a figure, and the few hunters who traveled the Nibel mountains were rough and dangerous people. They had to be dangerous, to fight off the wolves, the dragons, and the less identifiable monsters.

The boy smiled and raked a hand through his black, spiky hair. "Don't worry -- I wouldn't fight you! I just thought you looked down, and I don't know anyone around here -- Cloud and I only flew in yesterday -- and I'm already lost and bored out of my mind. I figured I could use a friend and you could probably use someone to talk to, so we'd both come out ahead. I'm Zack Strife. What's your name?"

Tifa scowled. "Why wouldn't you fight me? Because I'm a girl? I can fight better than all the boys in town -- Master Zangan took me as his _personal_ student."

"Zangan? Really?" Zack rocked back on his feet and whistled. "Wow. He's seriously famous, even though he left Midgar ages ago and the Shinra keep trying to make people forget him. So this is where he ended up? Cool. Anyway, I don't think girls are weak or anything -- I just think it's stupid to fight someone when you'd rather be her friend and cheer her up. So, what's your name? I can make one up if you don't tell me -- how about Mini Zangan? Or Bruiser? Maybe Garnet, for your eyes -- you have really pretty eyes, you know, like red wine. Or maybe--"

"Tifa! My name's Tifa Lockhart, and don't you dare call me any of that other stuff." Tifa tried to scowl at Zack some more -- he deserved it for coming up with those horrible names! -- but he was smiling and somehow it was impossible to stay angry.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Miss Lockhart," Zack said, grinning even wider.

"Oh, shut up," Tifa muttered. She took three steps forward, closing the distance between them, and grabbed his hand. "Come on -- you said you were lost. I'll show you around."

"You're the best, Tifa," Zack said earnestly. "I can feel in my heart that this is the beginning of a lifelong friendship."

Tifa whapped him upside the head with her free hand, and yanked him down the road toward Nibelheim proper. "I said shut up, you jerk."

Zack just laughed.

\---------------

Normally it took just under an hour to walk every street in town -- Nibelheim wasn't very big, after all -- but Tifa dawdled as much as she could, explaining a little about each family house, the inn, the mine offices, the town hall, the non-denominational temple, and the little shops on High Street. Partly it was just that she kind of liked talking with Zack, partly it was to make sure some of the cattier girls saw her holding hands with a hot guy, and partly it was because she didn't want to go back home.

But eventually they wound up in front of her father's house, with its fancy gateposts and the stupid two-story tower he'd insisted on adding to one corner. He called it a mark of status. Tifa called it stupid. And ugly. And embarrassing.

"This is my dad's house," she told Zack, "and that's all there is to Nibelheim. Do you want to hike up to the mines, or should we go back to the inn?"

Zack looked utterly baffled, before covering with a grin and a wink. "The inn? Why? Do you want me to buy you lunch?"

Tifa scowled at him. "Don't be stupid; you only buy girls lunch when you're on a date. But you didn't come here alone, right? You should tell your family you haven't been killed or kidnapped. Adults flip out if they don't always know where you are, even if you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself."

"Oh, Cloud doesn't worry unless I'm gone overnight -- he's cool like that. And anyway, we aren't staying at the inn," Zack said, reaching over to tug gently on Tifa's ponytail. "We're staying up at the Shinra mansion -- that's why I was on the path this morning." 

"You're staying at the _Shinra mansion?_ Are you crazy? That place is haunted!"

Zack blinked, and then bounced on his toes. "Seriously? That's totally cool! I have to tell Cloud -- hey, you want to come meet him? I bet he'd like you."

Tifa hesitated, torn between residual nerves about the mansion and her desire to spend more time with Zack.

"You could stay for lunch," Zack said, "and maybe even for dinner. I'll talk Cloud into it, and you can call your dad on the PHS and tell him where you are..."

That tipped the balance. A full day away from her father was definitely worth the chance of running into some ghosts.

"Okay, I'll come."

Zack bounced some more. "Really, seriously cool. Hey, does that make this a date?"

"Shut up."

\---------------

The Shinra mansion stood a good fifteen minutes' walk outside of town and up the mountain, away from the rutted switchback road that joined Nibelheim to the rest of the world. It was a rambling, brooding sort of building. Once it had been beautiful -- Tifa could see shadows of its past despite the stained and peeling paint, the occasional holes in the roof, and the age-warped timbers -- but now the mansion huddled behind a rusty chain-link fence, as if ashamed to show its face to the world.

"Cloud says there used to be a real stone wall with an iron gate and everything, back when some of the Shinra used this as a hunting lodge," Zack said as he unlatched the gate. "That would've been so much cooler than this."

Tifa pushed the gate shut, but didn't latch it, just in case they had to make a quick exit. "Before I was born, my dad says the Shinra lent the mansion to a group of scientists, and they strung up barbed wire and electrified the fence so touching it was as bad as lightning spells. They were cutting up monsters and _breeding_ them, so they needed something tougher than a stone wall to keep them in. But something went wrong and one of the scientists got _eaten_ , so they stopped the project and nobody's lived here since then." She shivered. "They say that under the full moon, you can see the scientist's ghost walking along the fence with his guts hanging out and his arm bitten off."

"Seriously? I'd kill to see that."

Zack sounded far too excited and not nearly scared enough. Tifa didn't usually get scared of things, but that was because she knew she could fight. There wasn't any way to fight ghosts -- all you could do was run.

Zack kicked open the front door and ushered Tifa into the mansion. "I'm back!" he shouted, waking echoes from the bare walls and startling a sparrow from its nest over a broken window. "And I brought company!" He headed across the room toward a sagging door, unbuckling his sword as he went. "Cloud's probably in the kitchen, fixing the stove. He's kind of obsessive about tea, and he's no good at fire magic so he couldn't heat water this morning. I think I learned about twenty new curses listening to him."

"If he's that angry, maybe I should leave," Tifa said as Zack pulled her through the doorway. She looked around; the kitchen did seem to be a hopeless mess, and whether the stove was theoretically fixed or not, she was pretty sure there was no power running to the mansion. The silent refrigerator lent weight to that thought.

Zack waved his hands airily. "Oh, don't worry! He'll be over that by now. He only _really_ gets angry in the morning, or when-- anyway, even if he hasn't fixed the stove, by now he'll just be sarcastic."

"Your faith in me is touching," a voice said behind them.

Tifa spun, and found herself staring at the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen in her life. Admittedly, thirteen years wasn't a very long life, and most Nibelheim men weren't going to win any beauty contests, but still. He had a heartbreaking face, and thick hair as spiky as Zack's, but golden instead of black, like sunlight reflecting off the mountains. She wanted to sink her hands into it and never let go. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with the sleeves torn off -- his arms weren't thick, but Tifa could see muscle, like he was a swordsman or a martial artist. She wanted to touch his flawless skin. And she could have happily drowned in his blue eyes.

"Guh," she said. "Um. Uh. I'm Tifa Lockhart! I'm sorry!"

The man leaned against the doorframe and smiled gently. Tifa's heart skipped a beat. "I'm Cloud Strife," he said. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Lockhart. You have my apologies for whatever suffering you've endured in Zack's company."

"Hey!" said Zack.

Tifa kicked him.

\---------------

Cloud had apparently spent the morning dealing with the local electric company -- which was really owned by the Shinra, even if the royal family pretended they were above dirtying their hands in commerce -- and picking up a picnic lunch from the inn, which he set on the battered kitchen table. "There's more than enough for three," he said when Tifa made halfhearted noises about leaving. "Zack's a growing boy, after all; sometimes I wonder if I'm feeding a person or a monster. I always bring extra."

"Again, hey!" Zack's protest and hurt puppy-dog eyes were, however, undermined by the way he snatched three sandwiches out of Cloud's bag and tore into the first one.

"You see what I have to deal with?" Cloud said wryly as he chose a sandwich.

Tifa nodded, and tried not to squeak over the way that Cloud was treating her as an equal. He had to be at least nineteen, maybe even twenty-one or twenty-two, but he wasn't looking down on her.

"Told you Cloud's cool," Zack said between mouthfuls. "Hey, Cloud, Tifa says this place is haunted -- did you know that?"

Cloud shook his head. "I've heard a number of stories about this house, but I've never heard about ghosts. Would you be willing to tell us the story, Miss Lockhart?"

Tifa blushed and nodded. "Sure. And you can call me Tifa -- you're Zack's brother, so you don't have to be outsider-formal. Anyway, there are a whole bunch of ghosts that haunt Shinra mansion. Which do you want to hear about?"

"The oldest," Zack said, talking through a mouthful of sandwich.

"Okay." Tifa took a deep breath, took a second to fix the story in her mind, and fell into the storyteller's steady rhythm. "Long and long ago, there was a Lady Shinra whose husband died in the Angels' War. When the Demon Queen was sealed away, she came to Nibelheim to live alone with her son. The boy was everything to her, but as he grew older they started to fight. He wanted to leave and become a soldier like his father. She wanted him to stay, to be a man of peace instead.

"One day, after they'd been arguing, Lady Shinra swore that she'd see her son dead by her own hand before she let him waste his life like his father. Her son swore he'd rather die than stay in Nibelheim another day, and he ran out of the mansion."

"Oh, bad move," Zack murmured.

Cloud slid a hand over Zack's mouth. "Don't interrupt." His eyes were fixed on Tifa's face, an odd hunger lurking in their depths.

Tifa closed her eyes and fell back into the story. "Her son ran out of the mansion. The minute he left, Lady Shinra regretted what she'd said. She prayed for him to come home, and swore she'd apologize and let him go to the lowlands. She waited all morning, all afternoon, and into the evening, but he never came back through the door. She hung out a lantern and waited all night, but he never came back through the door. And the next morning, the townspeople carried her son's dead body up to the gates.

"They say Lady Shinra went white as snow when she saw her son, bloody and broken from falling down a cliff. Without him, she had nothing left. The town women stayed to watch her in her grief, but she slipped away and threw herself out of a window. She died of a broken neck -- the same way her son died. Even the bruises on their bodies were exactly the same.

"Ever since, Lady Shinra's ghost walks through the corridors looking for her son. If she sees any living people, she forces them to leap out of the windows, hoping that their deaths will bring back her son.

"But the dead don't return, and she only makes new ghosts to trail in her footsteps."

There. Not as good as a real storyteller could do it, but not half bad either, judging by the shadow of uneasiness passing over Zack's normally cheerful face. Satisfied, Tifa took a bite of her sandwich. It was chicken salad with tomato and real lettuce, instead of bitter dandelion and plantain -- clearly, Cloud had money to spare if he could afford shipped vegetables instead of local greens.

Zack shook himself. "Creepy. And kind of sad -- it's been, what, two thousand years and she still hasn't figured out that she's not getting anywhere."

"Ghosts are trapped in the past," Cloud said quietly. "They don't learn well."

"Creepy," Zack repeated. Then he leaned forward and splayed his elbows on the table. "Hey, how does she make people jump? Does she cloud your mind? Does she chase you? Or does she, like, drift into your body and _possess_ you?"

Tifa shrugged. "How would I know -- do I look like I jumped out a window and died?"

Zack and Cloud exchanged an odd look. "That... can be hard to tell, sometimes," Cloud said in a slightly choked voice. "In any case, I know that story, though in a somewhat different version -- one without ghosts."

"Really?" Tifa asked. "What's your version?"

Cloud shut his eyes for a long moment, and then sighed. "Lady Shinra lived only for her son. He agreed to stay in Nibelheim until his twenty-fifth birthday, but he was restless and spent most of his time out hunting the monsters spawned in the great war. He was injured on one of his hunts, and the wound seemed fatal. When his mother saw his body, she decided to join him and her husband; she killed herself. She was a noblewoman, so she swallowed poison instead of jumping from a window. Poison was thought to be more dignified."

Cloud's hand tightened on the edge of the table. "The real tragedy is that the son's accident wasn't as serious as everyone had thought. He woke the next day, only to learn that his mother was dead... whereupon he left Nibelheim and never returned."

"Oh," Tifa said. "That must have been terrible for him. When my mother died, I thought the world was ending. I still miss her."

Zack reached across the table to rest one hand on Cloud's arm and lace his fingers through Tifa's.

"It was painful," Cloud agreed. Then he rolled his shoulders and picked up his sandwich again. "He never stopped regretting his mother's death, but over the years he found new people to love, and he had a long and interesting life."

"Very long," Zack said, snickering.

"Don't joke about it, you jerk!" Tifa snapped, and punched him.

Cloud looked forlornly at the stove, at the kettle of cold water, at his empty cup, and at his canister of tea. He sighed.

Tifa fell in love again.


	2. Chapter 2

"You showed me around town, so I'm going to show you around the mansion," Zack announced after lunch. "Cloud, you come and tell Tifa what all the rooms used to be like."

"So, to be clear, _I'll_ be showing Miss Lockhart around," Cloud said.

"No! I'm showing her around. You're just... my really convenient living guidebook." Zack stuck out his tongue at Cloud and ducked smoothly away from Cloud's halfhearted swipe at his hair.

Tifa covered her mouth, but didn't try too hard to stifle her laughter. She wished she had a brother or sister to play around with, the way Zack and Cloud teased each other. It wouldn't be half so hard to stand her ground and keep believing in herself if she had someone to watch her back.

"All right, we'll give you the one-gil tour," Cloud said once he'd successfully cornered Zack and tickled him breathless. "Zack here will pick the route, and I'll answer any questions." He smiled. "If we pass any places that have ghost stories attached to them, feel free to tell us -- I think I like the idea of living in a haunted mansion."

Cloud was gorgeous, but he was just as insane as Zack.

Tifa followed Cloud and Zack out of the kitchen and back into the entry hall. "We'll start down here," Zack decided, as he grabbed three flashlights from a battered end table, "and go upstairs later -- mostly what's up there is a bunch of seriously dusty bedrooms with mildew and spiders all over. This floor's more interesting, especially the trophy room. I looked in there last night, and you wouldn't _believe_ the things all the Shinra had stuffed and nailed on the walls -- like a couple of dragons! They didn't use the dragons for any spells, either, just stuck them up to brag. And there are two-headed monsters, and this thing with tentacles, and a wolf as big as a horse."

"That's not so big for a wolf," Tifa said as Zack led the way through a bewildering maze of interconnecting rooms, painted an aggressively neutral gray. Most were empty, but a few held piles of old machinery or rows of rusty file cabinets -- leftovers from the mad scientists.

"Seriously? I've never seen a wolf that big."

"Nibel wolves aren't the same species as gray wolves," Cloud explained. "They're much larger, and they're adapted for high altitude and the high concentration of magic around here. They keep gray wolves out, but they get weak and sick if they stray too far from the Nibel mountains, so they're very rare everywhere else."

"Cool." Zack opened a water-warped door, wedged it with a handy bit of broken floorboard, and bounced into the trophy room.

Tifa followed more warily; this would be the perfect place for a monster to hide and ambush any careless humans. The Shinra had spared no expense on their hunting trophies. Magic preserved the beasts as fresh as the day of their deaths, and their glass eyes glittered hungrily from the corners, lit by the faint wash of sun through the open door. Tifa almost expected them to lunge forward and maul her, and even the bodiless heads on the walls seemed to watch her as she edged into the room.

"Judging by the decay on the preservation spells, this display is fairly recent, probably from within the last five decades," Cloud said as he strode toward the door on the far side of the room. "This mansion belongs to a cadet branch of the royal family, but they haven't used it in centuries, just rented it to various people and organizations. Apparently one of the tenants -- or a group of tenants, judging by the size of the collection -- was an enthusiastic hunter."

Cloud opened the far door, and stopped dead. His hand tightened until the door creaked under his grip. Tifa fell into a ready stance; in the corner of her eye, she saw Zack shift his weight and draw a knife from his sleeve.

"Zachary. Tifa. Go back to the kitchen. I have to... take care of something."

\---------------

There was something about Cloud's voice that made it impossible to even think of disobeying. Tifa found herself back in the kitchen before it occurred to her that they'd left Cloud alone to face whatever horrible thing had surprised him.

"What if it was a ghost?" she said to Zack. "He'll die!"

Zack looked like he badly wanted to laugh, but didn't think he ought to. "Cloud's tough," he said finally. "He'll be all right. There was probably just something really disgusting in the room, and he didn't want us to see it. He gets overprotective like that."

Tifa rubbed her arms, feeling chilly despite the way the mansion trapped the summer heat. "Maybe it was the dead scientist, the one who got eaten by monsters. I wouldn't want to see that." Zack muttered to himself, and Tifa scowled. "You'd better not be saying bad things about me."

"I'm just saying you're weird," he said defensively. "One minute you're trying to beat me up, and the next you're going all wussy about dead bodies. Can't you make up your mind?"

"Jerk." Tifa threw breadcrumbs at him, and laughed as Zack shook his head in an effort to get them out of his hair. "They wouldn't get stuck if you brushed your hair more than once a year -- you look like a bird tried to build a nest on your head." She struck a pose she'd seen in a fashion magazine, letting her own glossy ponytail swirl over her shoulders.

"I brush it! It just gets like this -- and anyway, Cloud's hair is worse and you didn't say anything about him." Zack shot her a sly look. "Do you _like_ Cloud?"

Tifa flushed and hunched her shoulders. "Shut up!"

A slow, brilliant smile spread across Zack's face. "You do. You totally like him. And you're younger than I am -- oh, he's going to flip out. Hey, what'll you give me to stop me from telling him?"

"Nothing, because I don't like him -- you're just imagining things," Tifa snapped, trying to sound like she wasn't lying through her teeth. "You're such a jerk, Zack."

Zack staggered back, clutching his hands to his heart. "Ow! That's a terrible thing to say to your new best friend, Tifa. Come on, let's go spy on Cloud -- if you help me, I won't tell him a thing."

"He said to stay in the kitchen," Tifa protested. Yes, she was curious, but what if it was the dead scientist's body? If they got too close, that might let his ghost recognize them, so it could follow them at night.

Zack scoffed. "Oh, don't be a wuss. I bet _Zangan_ wouldn't be too scared to go look, but if you're going to be all girly..."

"I am not scared!" Tifa said, clenching her fists and glaring at Zack. "I just don't want to bother Cloud -- and that's because it's rude, not because I like him or anything! Stop acting like a jerk and let's go."

"Your wish is my command," Zack said, smiling.

\---------------

It took Tifa a minute to realize she'd been manipulated, by which point they were nearly back to the trophy room. She drew Zack over to the wall so they wouldn't be out in the open where Cloud couldn't miss them. Then she drove her heel down on his toes, which would hurt like hell without actually breaking anything important.

"Shit!" Zack collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs, kicked off his shoe to massage his foot, and glared up at her. "Tifa! What was that for?"

"For being too clever," Tifa told him. "Shhh. Cloud might hear you." She tiptoed over to the doorway, which led into the last room before the trophy rooms, and peered around the doorframe. Cloud walked out of the trophy room, carrying something large and awkward wrapped in a dusty canvas shroud; Tifa ducked back and held her breath until his footsteps faded in the distance.

She peeked back through the doorway. The empty room had three doors -- the one she was standing next to, the trophy room door almost directly across from her, and one in the right-hand wall that opened onto a long corridor. That must have been where Cloud had gone with whatever he was carrying.

"Well?" Zack asked, coming to stand by her shoulder.

"He's gone -- he was carrying something down the hallway." Tifa took a deep breath and summoned her courage; she wasn't going to look scared in front of Zack. "Let's go."

She only grabbed his hand to make sure he didn't run ahead and give them away by throwing up, or yelling, or doing any other stupid things. It had nothing to do with wanting human contact. Not at all.

They tiptoed across the trophy room, slipped through the open doorway, and swept their flashlights from side to side, looking for what had startled Cloud.

Zack's hand tightened around Tifa's fingers. She didn't notice the pain. She was too busy trying not to throw up.

This room held more trophies, stuffed and mounted, but these... these weren't animals. To her right, a purplish figure with ragged wings held a sword in a desperate guard position. Behind him, a beautiful woman with fish-fin ears and delicate fangs stood with her hands raised to cast a spell. Almost every figure in the room was standing on two legs, wearing clothes, or holding a weapon. Even the bat-winged, wolf-like creature on the left wore a row of silver earrings, and its paws ended in slender fingers rather than blunt pads.

"Demons," Tifa whispered. "They hunted demons. But demons aren't animals -- they're dangerous and you have to watch out for them, but they're _people_."

"Yeah." Zack's voice cracked halfway through the word. "There's another door. What else did they hunt?"

Tifa shook her head. "I don't want to look. I want to get out of here." There was no way at least some of the demons hadn't turned into ghosts, their restless, angry spirits lingering in the world instead of going home to the lifestream. She didn't want to be anywhere _near_ this room.

Zack hesitated, looking across the terrible room toward the half-open door, and then swallowed. "Yeah, let's get out of here."

Behind them, the door swung open.


	3. Chapter 3

Zack twisted around faster than anyone Tifa had ever seen. "Fuck! Cloud!"

Cloud's face was pale and set, and his blue eyes glittered with some tightly leashed emotion. "Zachary Strife, I thought I told you to go to the kitchen."

"We did go to the kitchen. We just didn't stay there," Zack said, letting go of Tifa's hand and waving his arms; his flashlight beam danced wildly over the murdered demons. "Besides, this is serious. Cloud, look at this place! Look at all these people! Why didn't you know what was going on here? Your family hunted people and _stuffed_ them, and Tifa said they had mad scientists breeding monsters here, and--"

"His family?" Tifa asked. "What do you mean, his family?"

Cloud froze. Zack flushed. "Um. Cloud kind of owns this house? And he kind of lent it to his cousins? And they're kind of the royal family?"

"The royal family? You're _Shinra?_ " But they'd seemed so... so nice, if not anywhere near normal. And the Shinra weren't nice. They weren't necessarily evil -- a lot of the old kings and queens had helped people, in an impersonal, grand project sort of way -- but they always, always had to be in absolute control, and they didn't much care who got hurt in the process. And some of them, or their servants, had filled this room of corpses.

Tifa edged away, keeping a wary eye on the Strifes. Then she tripped over an empty display stand hidden by the shadows.

"Crap! Are you okay, Tifa?" Zack's hands were warm against her back, and Tifa realized he'd almost blurred forward and stopped her from falling on her ass. Which was something a friend would do. And not like any story she'd heard about the Shinra. And not exactly something a human could do.

"Uh, maybe? I mean, yeah, of course I'm fine." She tossed her hair back over her shoulder and tried to look brave. It was hard, in this shadowy room with dozens of magically preserved eyes staring at her. "Um. Can we get out of here?"

"Yes," Cloud said firmly. "We're going back to the kitchen, where I am going to make tea. Then we'll talk."

"I'll cast the fire spells," Zack said hastily. "Your tea won't be very hot, but at least the house won't burn down."

"That might not be such a bad thing," Cloud muttered, as he shut the door behind them

\---------------

The kitchen was a haven of disorganized normality after their discoveries; the afternoon sunlight pouring through the windows was a particularly welcome contrast to the dark, closed trophy rooms. Tifa busied herself collecting the used plates and cups and setting them in the sink. She turned the hot water faucet experimentally; the pipes rattled, and then a sputtering pop of air heralded an uneven flow of water. It was cold, and faintly metallic -- well water, then, instead of treated water from the town reservoir.

"Hey, Cloud did fix the pump generator," Zack said, looking over her shoulder. "When we got here last night, even the toilets didn't work, which was totally disgusting, and we had to hand-pump water for breakfast. That generator's weird -- I mean, it burns these huge tanks of gas, which you'd have to fly in from somewhere, and it makes way too much power for just a pump, but we couldn't figure out what else it's supposed to run."

"Probably the electric fence," Tifa said, making a face at the likely state of the toilets. "And maybe the mad scientists' labs -- oh no, what if you turned on a bunch of killer robots and laser canons or something like that?"

Zack shrugged. "Then we'll fight. You're tough, right? I'm pretty good, too, and Cloud's _awesome_. But anyway, don't worry about the dishes," Zack said, grabbing her hand and pulling her over to the table. "There's a room full of dead people and we have to do something about it. Who knows how long they've been there? What if they had families, and people are still looking for them? It's hard to pin anything on the Shinra, but Cloud has pull and whoever did this needs to go down, hard."

Cloud looked up from communing with his tea, and frowned. "Did one of you say something about mad scientists?"

"Yeah, Tifa says the Shinra had a whole bunch of head cases out here breeding monsters, until something got loose and ate one of them -- that's another one of her ghost stories." Zack rummaged through the nearly-empty take-out bag, searching for another sandwich. "Hey, do you think the scientists were the ones who killed the demons?"

Cloud pinched the bridge of his nose; his other hand clutched his teacup like it was a guide rope and he was walking a two-inch wide ledge at the top of a cliff. "No. Now that I think about it, I'm fairly sure I know which pair of my cousins killed those people, and neither of them would have had anything to do with scientists. They certainly wouldn't have let anyone carve up their kills for experiments. But the door beyond that... trophy collection... leads to the basement, and you two are not going anywhere near it. What you've already seen is bad enough. Do I make myself clear?"

Tifa nodded fervently. She could imagine plenty of things worse than a roomful of stuffed corpses, and she had absolutely no desire to see any of them in real life.

"But--" Zack started.

"No." Cloud held up his hand, palm flat and forbidding. "It isn't that I don't trust you. There are simply some things in the world that I'd prefer you not to experience unless you absolutely can't avoid them. You've already had enough bad luck to see you through the next four or five decades; let the scales even a bit before you throw yourself into trouble."

Zack looked disgruntled, but he just slumped and grabbed another sandwich. "Fine, whatever. But you won't be able to order me around too much longer."

"That," said Cloud, "depends entirely on your choice of profession. You may eat those words yet." He sipped his tea and smiled enigmatically. Zack threw a piece of bread crust at him.

"Don't throw food," Tifa said, reaching over to punch him lightly in the shoulder. "And stop complaining -- it's not like Cloud's asking you to do anything stupid or wrong. You're lucky."

A look of mock-panic crossed Zack's face. "Don't say that -- he'll get _ideas_."

"Jerk."

\---------------

While Cloud brooded over his tea and Zack picked at his sandwich, Tifa went in search of the nearest bathroom. The toilet was as nasty as she'd expected, and the rest of the room was coated in dust, but a good flush, combined with some soap, water, and a borrowed dishrag, fixed the worst of the problems.

She tried not to look in the mirror over the sink while she washed her hands. For one thing, the glass was cracked; that was bad luck. For another, she'd heard that sometimes ghosts appeared through mirrors if you thought about them too hard -- they'd hover over your shoulder and touch you with their cold, misty hands, or they'd change your reflection into a monster that lunged forward and strangled you or ripped your heart out.

Maybe some ghosts were relatively harmless -- they just stayed to deliver messages, or to wait for someone to die so they could move on together -- but any ghosts who haunted this mansion were bound to be angry, and probably not thinking clearly either.

Which reminded her: she ought to call her father soon, so he wouldn't flip out too badly.

"Can I borrow a PHS?" Tifa asked as she dumped the filthy dishrag into the kitchen sink. "I need to tell my dad where I am." Then another thought struck her. "Um, my dad's the mayor of Nibelheim -- should we tell him about the demons? They were murdered, and he's supposed to deal with stuff like that."

Cloud shook his head. "Those people have been dead for at least three decades. Their killers are dead as well, and they would have been beyond your father's reach in any case. I always told Roland they needed to be watched, but he never did want to hear anything bad about his little angels," he muttered, and sipped some more tea. "I should never have let those two stay here."

Tifa stared blankly at Cloud.

The only Shinra named Roland had been the old king -- the current king's grandfather. He'd had three children. His eldest son had married, had a son, and died young. His daughter and his younger son had been well-liked, for Shinra; they were beautiful, they liked flashy adventures that looked good in tabloids, and they had a habit of settling in small, out-of-the-way places and pouring money into local businesses and crafts. They had spent several years in Nibelheim, off and on, before their deaths in an airship crash about thirty years ago -- people in town still reminisced about their generosity.

Rosa and Vert Shinra had killed those poor demons? And Cloud had known King Roland? That was impossible -- he couldn't be more than twenty-five years old!

Zack coughed. "Um, Cloud? You just blew your other secret."

Guilt and embarrassment chased each other over Cloud's face. "Shit." Then he flushed, set down his empty teacup, and sighed. "Sorry. I've been off balance ever since I saw what a mess the last tenants made of my house, and those rooms made it even worse. I'm older than I look, Tifa. A lot older."

Tifa leaned back against the counter, bracing her hands on the edge of the sink. "Are you a demon? You don't look like a demon, but my dad says if you're only a quarter-breed or less, it doesn't always show. Or are you an angel?"

"I really couldn't say," Cloud said wryly. "I'm definitely not all human, but I didn't know that myself until I was twenty-one and my particular... gift... became rather dramatically apparent. The nonhuman blood is on my father's side, but I never knew him, and my mother never spoke of him. I assume the memories were too painful."

He looked over at Zack and smiled. "Now Zack, here -- I don't know which side he gets it from, but there's demon in his blood. Probably oriented toward shadow; he's a genius at staying hidden when he knows he's screwed up and he doesn't want a lecture."

"Hey!" Zack protested, casting a nervous glance at Tifa. "Just because you blew _your_ secrets--"

"It's okay," Tifa interrupted. "I don't mind if you're part demon. Demons are people, remember? And you said we're going to be best friends -- friends stick by each other, no matter what. So are we friends, or are you a liar?" She straightened and held out her hand, tilting her chin up and giving Zack her best challenging look.

Slowly, Zack reached over and clasped her hand. "We're friends."


	4. Chapter 4

Tifa hung onto Zack's hand for about ten seconds longer than she'd meant to. Then she remembered why she'd started this conversation. "Um. About that PHS...? I really do need to tell my dad where I am, so he doesn't get paranoid and send people to look for me."

"No problem," Cloud said, and pulled a small handheld unit from his pocket. "It's a Midgar area code; you'll have to dial long distance. Don't worry about the charges."

If Cloud was Shinra (even if he didn't use the name), and if he owned this mansion and could afford to ignore it for decades, there was no way Tifa was going to worry about running up his phone bill. Besides, his PHS was cool -- all sleek and high tech -- and she bet it didn't even get static the way most mobile units did in the mountains.

She walked into the entry hall and dialed home. Her father picked up on the second ring. "Lockhart," he snapped.

"Hi, Dad," Tifa said. "I'm at a friend's house, and I'll be staying for dinner, so don't--"

"Tifa! Where have you been? You ran away from our conversation this morning, and I heard you were walking around town with a stranger -- a young man! What were you thinking? Who is he? Where are you?"

Tifa scowled; she'd been hoping to talk fast enough so she could hang up in good conscience before her father pulled himself together and started interrogating her. "I didn't run away. I just didn't feel like fighting, so I went for a walk. And my _friend's_ name is Zack Strife; he's visiting Nibelheim with his, um, brother. I was showing him around. I'm fine. Don't worry."

"Don't worry? I'm your father, I'll worry all I want to. Tifa, _where are you?_ "

Here came the argument. "The Shinra mansion."

Her father was silent for several seconds; Tifa could almost see him pinching his nose and taking deep breaths so he wouldn't scream. "Tifa Lockhart. I understand that you're growing up. I understand that you want a bit of independence. It's normal for teenagers to push their boundaries. But there are limits! Going off with strangers, to _that_ place, is not reasonable. It's not safe. Anyone staying there has connections to the Shinra, and while normally I'd be happy for you to make influential friends, the people they rent that house to shouldn't be let within ten miles of decent people, let alone children!"

He took another deep breath. "Tifa, come home."

"No." Tifa clutched Cloud's PHS and kicked the wall. "I won't! Zack and Cloud aren't like that -- they're nice -- and I'm not stupid like you think I am. You don't really care about me anyway. If you cared, you would've paid attention to Mom, and you wouldn't have given up when I fell off the bridge. You stopped looking! You're just acting nice now so people think you're a good father and forget that you gave up! I'm spending the night here. If you try to stop me, I swear I'll really run away."

She stabbed the 'end' button with her finger and shut the PHS with a sharp click.

\---------------

"You fell off a bridge?"

Tifa spun around, her face burning. Zack leaned in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, looking a bit sheepish but mostly fascinated.

"Um. Yes. But it's none of your business."

Zack pouted. "Come on, Tifa -- I thought friends were supposed to share their secrets. Besides, you already know mine..."

"She knows one of yours," Cloud corrected, joining Zack in the doorway. "Don't bother Tifa. Friends or not, everyone has the right to keep some things private, and families are touchy subjects." He smiled wryly.

Tifa smiled back, weakly. She'd forgotten to keep her voice down, and she really didn't want to think about her father right now. Thinking about ghosts, dead demons, mad scientists, and evil Shinra was quite enough.

Although... her father had said something about the people who'd been renting this house -- that they shouldn't be let anywhere near children. Was that just resentment talking, or did he know something?

She didn't want to think about it.

"So, what are we going to do about the demons?" she asked. "Even if you're not going to tell anyone -- and I guess I see why, even if it's horrible that the murderers got away with it -- we still shouldn't just leave them in that room."

"I am going to tell someone," Cloud said. "I'm going to tell the king, I'm going to tell the priests who keep the family vaults, and I'm going to tell the victims' families. Rosa and Vert kept their victims' names; there's a plaque on each stand." He gave Tifa and Zack a long, considering look, and then sighed. "Grab your flashlights and something to write with. We're going to copy the names and a description of each person, and then we're going to burn the bodies. I've already taken one out back."

A grim expression settled on his face. "While you two keep an eye on the fire, I'll... take care of the basement. I'd like to get that done before dark."

"We could help!" Zack said earnestly. "It'd go faster with three people..."

"No."

"But--"

"No." Cloud stepped out of the doorway into the entry hall, a flashlight already swinging from his wrist. "Tifa, grab the flashlights. Zack, get a notebook and a pen from my bags and meet us at the trophy room."

Zack hurried to obey. Tifa hesitated. "Is it enough to tell their families and the priests? What good is that, really? And shouldn't people know?"

Cloud sighed. "Ideally, yes, people should know. Unfortunately, my family has done an excellent job of making sure all power in the country flows through their hands, and squelching any non-government organizations that try to outgrow the village level. If the Shinra fall, everything falls apart with them."

Tifa thought about the electric and water companies (owned by the Shinra), the roads (paid for by the Shinra), the mines (owned by the Shinra), and the guard patrols that hunted bandits and dangerous animals (paid for and captained by Shinra soldiers), and made a face.

"Besides," Cloud continued, "I prefer to avoid revolutions; they're messy, painful, and often the people who win power are worse than the rulers they wanted to replace. So I'll remind them that I _could_ tell their secrets, I'll make sure Rosa and Vert's crimes are carved on their sepulchers for posterity, and I'll give closure to the victims' families. It's better than nothing."

"It's still not right," Tifa said.

"No, it isn't," Cloud agreed. "If you want to change things, I'd be willing to help, but that would take decades. It would also be very dangerous, to your family and friends as well as to you."

"I don't care about my dad," Tifa said, "and Master Zangan can take care of himself. And you and Zack are safe, right?"

"More or less. So you want to call the Shinra to account?"

"Yes. Maybe not now, but someday."

Cloud smiled.

\---------------

Much though she hated to admit it, both Zack and Cloud were stronger than Tifa -- "Okay, not stronger, just better at lifting things!" Zack amended quickly -- so she wrote names and descriptions while they carried the bodies down the corridors and out to the bare ground near the generator. She finished well before they did, of course, and pointedly hauled two canvas-wrapped bodies outside to lay on top of the other corpses.

The sun shone sideways through the tips of the trees, coloring the mountains gold, when Cloud carried the last body out and stepped back from the pile. "My fire spells have a tendency to get a little out of hand," he warned, raising his hands.

"He's totally not kidding about that," Zack said, grabbing Tifa's hand and hurrying toward the mansion. Cloud was casting toward the fence, so they had less chance of getting caught in any overflow if they stood behind him. "But it's really cool to watch."

Half the yard exploded.

'A little out of hand,' Tifa thought nearly a minute later, when she'd regained her ability to do more than gape in shock, was the worst understatement she'd ever heard.

Cloud stared at his hands. "I think my anger complicated things," he murmured.

"No shit," Zack said, whapping Cloud on the back of his head. "You're lucky you didn't set fire to the forest, too!"

The forest surrounded Nibelheim. The mansion was less than two miles from the town. The trees were tinder-dry in late summer. Images of wildfire -- flame-crowned trees, the spray of heated oil as pines cracked from the heat, collapsing houses, the stench of roasting meat -- raced through Tifa's mind.

She slapped Cloud before she could stop herself. "You idiot! If you knew this might happen, why didn't you set a firebreak first!"

Cloud touched the back of his head, looked out toward the forest and the flying sparks from the pyre, and winced. "You're right. I grew up here; I should have known better. Anger is no excuse for not thinking straight." He smiled, soft and rueful.

Tifa melted. "Well, if I'd just found this in my house, I'd be distracted too..."

"Still." Cloud stared blankly at the fire for a long moment. Then he shrugged and clapped his hands. "Right. Zack, Tifa, I want you to pull up the grass along the fence, to make a firebreak, while I take care of the basement. Then we'll head into town for dinner, since I didn't get enough sandwiches to hold us over." He strode back into the mansion.

Zack and Tifa exchanged measuring looks.

"He's still off balance, isn't he?" Tifa said.

"Totally," agreed Zack. "But he's right, isn't he? Come on, show me about firebreaks -- we don't need them in Midgar, because we have firefighters. They cast the coolest spells," he continued as he walked toward the fence, "huge water spells, like tidal waves, and they crash down on burning buildings and then you get smoke and steam and it makes the sun go all hard and orange if you look through the clouds. Anyway, they usually keep the fires from spreading, even if they always come late to the lower city -- they work for the Shinra, you know, and the king doesn't give a shit about the slums. I think if Cloud didn't keep an eye on him, he'd burn half the city down just so he could rebuild it in straight lines."

Zack touched the fence, his hand clenching like he wanted to tear it down, and then he looked up at Tifa and grinned. "So, firebreaks!"

Tifa swallowed. "Zack, I've decided that I'm going to fix things so nothing like this mansion ever happens again. Would you like to help?"

Zack blinked. "Seriously? That's not going to be easy."

"I know. That's why I need help. But somebody needs to do _something_."

"Yeah. Somebody does. Okay, count me in." Zack smiled; it was less blinding than his usual grins, but something deep in his eyes made it shine ten times brighter. Tifa swallowed again. Then Zack reached out and tugged on her ponytail. "Enough of that. Come on, Mini Zangan, show me about firebreaks."

Tifa kicked him.

Then she started explaining firebreaks.


	5. Chapter 5

Tifa pulled grass and weeds; Zack followed her, digging a shallow trench in the cleared path. When they had the pyre surrounded -- and after Tifa had fetched a second shovel from the shed and helped Zack widen the trench -- they went back to the kitchen to wash up and wait for Cloud to finish dealing with the basement.

"So how old is Cloud?" Tifa asked as she put a handful of loose leaf tea into an infusion ball and filled the kettle with cold water. "If he knew King Roland, he has to be at least fifty or sixty, but he only looks about twenty. Does he just age really slowly?"

Zack frowned. "I'm not telling you how old he is; that's his business. But he doesn't get older. I've known him for ten years now, and he always looks the same. Well, he grew his hair out for a few years while we were hanging around court -- it looks less messy when he can pull it back -- and his fingernails grow, but that's all."

"Weird," said Tifa. She set the kettle on the stove and sat down at the table, waiting for Cloud. They probably didn't have time for tea before dinner, not if they were walking into town, but this way everything was set up for when they got back.

"I guess it is," Zack agreed. "I never really thought about it -- he's just Cloud, and that's just how he is."

Tifa nodded. "Family's like that. Speaking of which, if Cloud's really old, is he your father? I thought he was your brother, but--"

"He adopted me," Zack interrupted, tipping his chair back so he was balanced precariously on two legs; he wobbled back and forth between the table and the wall. "He's my guardian, and I'm his heir -- which is the most pointless bit of legal nonsense ever -- but he's not my father. I don't have a father. And he's not my brother, either. He's just Cloud."

Tifa blinked. "Okay. Hey, if you're his heir, and he's Shinra, does that make you a lord?"

Zack flushed.

Tifa grinned. "It does! Ha! And my dad told me I shouldn't hang out with you -- I'll have to rub it in his face that he told me _not_ to be friends with a lord. What's your title? Or Cloud's title, I guess -- what lands does he hold? Is he a duke? He's got royal blood, so he could be a duke... or maybe he's only a baron." A thought struck her, and she leaned forward over the table. "Is he the lord of Nibelheim? I always thought we didn't have a lord, because we don't pay any land or harvest tithes, but Cloud said he doesn't like the way things are set up, so maybe he is our lord and he just doesn't collect taxes?"

Zack tilted his chair back further and braced his hands against the wall behind his head. "I don't know! I never listened to the damn protocol tutors! But I'm pretty sure Cloud doesn't need tithes -- he's got a _lot_ of savings and investments, and sometimes he goes off and does jobs for weird people. I think that pays well, but he never lets me come along."

"What kind of jobs?"

"Beats me," said Zack, and shrugged. "I think a lot of it's computer stuff, but sometimes he takes a sword and a bunch of guns, so I'm not sure. He told me once that he used to lead a mercenary group, a long, long time ago, so maybe he still works freelance. That'd be seriously cool. Of course, that means he probably isn't a merc, because life's never as cool as I hope it'll be." Zack sighed, sounding so weary and put-upon that Tifa couldn't help but laugh.

Zack promptly lunged across the table and tried to make her stop, which just made Tifa laugh harder. He pinned her to the floor. She bit him -- not hard, of course, but enough to make a point. He grabbed a dishtowel and tried to tie up her hands. She wriggled one free and shoved half-heartedly at him.

Tifa had just discovered that Zack was ticklish on the insides of his elbows -- he squirmed and turned pink at the tips of his ears -- when Cloud walked into the kitchen and stopped, looking bemused. "Zachary Strife," he said slowly. "Do I want to know what's going on here?"

"It's not what it looks like!" Zack said, letting go of the dishtowel and holding up his hands.

"Then you _are_ engaging in rather idiosyncratic foreplay?" said Cloud, raising one eyebrow.

Tifa squeaked, and clapped her hands over her mouth. She could feel herself turning ten shades of purple with embarrassment.

Zack just groaned. "I swear, Cloud, you pick the weirdest times to have a sense of humor. Can we go now, before I die of embarrassment?" He glanced sideways, and added, "And be nicer to Tifa! She's not used to you, you jerk."

"Oh, right. My apologies, Miss Lockhart." Cloud swept her a deep, formal bow, and then offered his hand to help her stand up.

Tifa swore she was turning an eleventh shade of purple.

This time, Zack laughed.

Tifa threw the dishtowel at him.

\---------------

Summer days were long in Nibelheim; the sun seemed to linger near the jagged horizon for hours, gilding the snow-capped peaks and casting long shadows through the pines. As they walked into town, Tifa amused herself by playing a silent game of hopscotch with the shadows on the road -- if she stepped into a shadow with her left foot, she was safe, but if her right foot touched a dark patch of gravel, she had to touch Cloud or Zack within the next thirty seconds. If either one of them noticed, they were polite enough not to say anything.

The streets were mostly empty at this hour -- everyone was home for dinner, and the few visitors were already at the inn. Tifa caught a few people looking curiously out of their windows at the strangers walking through town with the mayor's daughter, but she raised her chin and ignored them.

Cloud seemed perfectly at home -- which made sense, if he'd grown up in Nibelheim. Even if he was really old, it wasn't like the town ever changed much. Zack, on the other hand, kept looking around like something very obvious was missing.

"Half the houses have _doors_ on the second floors," Zack said. "I didn't notice earlier, but that's totally weird. What's the point of a door without a balcony or a staircase? I mean, if you're a demon and have wings, or if you're a mage and can summon winds, that's one thing, but you're mostly human here, right?"

"No demons, except hunters passing through," Tifa agreed. "The doors are for midwinter, when the snow gets high -- people used to just let it pile up and move the street up a story. But that gets messy if there's a thaw, so a few hundred years ago we dug tunnels between all the houses, so we don't have to go outside much once the big storms hit."

"You can't seriously get that much snow," Zack said. "Cloud, she's making that up, right?"

Cloud shook his head. "No, she isn't. Nibel winters are fierce, and everything has to work around the weather. You see how steeply the roofs are slanted? That's so the snow will slide off instead of piling up and weighing down the houses. And you see how the walkways are grooved on the slopes, and those holes on the sides of the buildings? That's for when everything gets iced over but the snow isn't too deep yet -- the grooves provide traction, and the holes are where people fix guide rails so they have something to hang on to when the wind blows."

"Weird," Zack said. "Why not just use fire spells and melt the snow?"

Tifa couldn't believe anyone didn't know this. "First of all, the water would freeze again before it all drained away, so we'd just have really slick ice to deal with. Second, hot water flowing underneath a big field of snow is a very bad idea! Don't you know what an avalanche is?"

"A bunch of snow and rocks falling down a mountain, right?" Zack said. "Are they really dangerous?"

" _Yes!_ " Tifa and Cloud said together. "And don't take that as an invitation to find out for yourself," Cloud added. "You can't fight an avalanche, and you're not fast enough to outrun one either. They're not a joke."

Zack held up his hands. "Okay, I get it -- don't mess with an avalanche, and don't melt all the snow. If I'm ever here in the winter, I'll make sure not to imitate you with the fire spells." Then he waved his hand toward the inn, which they had somehow reached without Tifa's notice. "By the way, I think we're here. Dinnertime!"

\---------------

The Nibelheim inn belonged to Marta Firth and her husband, Gunnar. They did a sporadic business hosting trappers, monster hunters, and mine inspectors, but mostly they served alcohol and occasional meals to townspeople. This being summer, there was a small group of nature enthusiasts on a hiking tour of the mountains -- they noisily occupied a large table in the corner, though judging by their occasional wary glances toward the bar, Marta had already told them off for causing too much of a ruckus.

Marta gave Tifa, Zack, and Cloud a weighing stare as they walked through the door. "Your father's looking for you, Tifa Lockhart. Who are these folks?"

"Cloud and Zack Strife," Tifa said, pointing to indicate which name went with whom. "I told my dad about them already; he's just--"

"--just being a father," Marta finished, with a disapproving look. "Give the poor man some credit, Tifa -- he's not a natural like your mother was, but he's trying his best. Are you eating here or going home?" Her tone left no doubt which option she thought was the proper one.

Tifa met Marta's eyes defiantly. "Here. With Zack and Cloud." She turned to her companions and asked, "Do you want stew or more sandwiches?"

Zack looked wary. "That depends -- what's in the stew?"

"Vegetables, mostly, and some beef for flavor," Marta said briskly, picking up a rag and wiping down the bar top. "Sandwiches are chicken, beef -- which is a bit on the stringy side, sad to say -- or egg salad. We don't do fancy food up here, Zack Strife, no matter what you're used to back in Midgar."

"Stew for me and Zack, and water to drink," Cloud said before Zack could say anything unfortunate. "We'll sit on your porch, if that won't be too much trouble."

Marta dropped her rag into a bucket of soapy water and dried her hands. "I think we'll manage, Mr. Strife. Stew for you, Tifa?" Her eyes strayed toward the PHS at the end of the bar, and Tifa realized her father would probably show up before the end of dinner.

Well, if he made a scene, that would be his problem.

"Stew for me," she said to Marta, "and if you call my dad, maybe you should make a bowl for him, too." Then she followed Cloud back outside, to the weather-beaten table the Firths kept outside for tourists who wanted to absorb the atmosphere of a small mountain town. Cloud seemed uninterested in atmosphere; Tifa suspected he just didn't want to be near the hikers.

"Why won't you let me have beer?" Zack asked as he pulled out a chair for Tifa. She stared crosswise at him -- he blinked, looked at his hands in surprise, and flushed. "Cloud, your stupid protocol tutors managed to corrupt me after all. I'm being chivalrous! This is embarrassing!"

"It's polite," Cloud said, without turning from his contemplation of the sunlight on the mountain peaks. "Tifa, don't hit him for this, even if we all know you're perfectly capable of pulling out your own chair. Court manners may be silly and often pretentious, but they can be deadly serious at times and Zack needs to master them."

"Okay," Tifa said, deciding to ignore the byplay. She sat down and kicked Zack's ankle until he stopped slapping the side of his head and pulled out a chair for himself.

"So, court manners, whatever. Cloud, why--"

"You can't have beer because you're underage," Cloud said before Zack could finish. He twisted back around in his seat as Marta Firth pushed the door open with her foot and carried three bowls of stew over to their table. Her husband followed with a half loaf of bread, a knife, spoons, and napkins. "Thank you very much," Cloud told her. "I'm sorry we've put you to the bother of calling Mr. Lockhart, and I apologize for any potential unpleasantness when he arrives." He smiled, quiet and brilliant, like dawn filtered over the edge of the horizon.

Very faintly, Marta Firth blushed.

Tifa kicked Zack before he could laugh.


	6. Chapter 6

The inn was on the opposite side of town from Tifa's house, a small favor that let her mostly finish her stew before her father arrived. Zack either picked up on her mood or was absolutely starving, because he made no real attempt at conversation, just shoveled food into his mouth. Cloud, on the other hand, savored Marta Firth's stew like it was an exotic gourmet dish.

"There's something about Nibel air, and the smoke from pine fires, that doesn't taste quite like anywhere else in the world," he said in response to Tifa's funny look. "It brings back a number of things I'd forgotten."

Tifa wondered again just how old Cloud was -- sometimes he acted like he wasn't much older than Zack, but just then he sounded like he was a thousand years old.

She heard her father coming a minute later; his shoes clicked against the paving stones, and he was breathing hard from hurrying across town. She set her spoon down beside her bowl, braced herself, and looked up to meet his eyes.

"Mayor Lockhart?" said Cloud, before Tifa's father opened his mouth. "Pleased to meet you -- I'm Cloud Strife and this is Zachary, my ward. He met your daughter earlier today, when she graciously showed him around your town and helped us start putting the Shinra mansion back into habitable condition. I'm very grateful to her, and I apologize if we caused you any concern."

He gestured to the empty chair at their table, which Zack hastily pulled out. "I'm afraid we can't offer more than bread at the moment, but if you'd care to join us, I'm sure Mrs. Firth will be willing to provide a full meal."

Tifa gaped.

It was small consolation that her father was gaping too, apparently unsure what to make of Cloud, and completely knocked off track from his intended lecture. "Ah, thank you, but that won't be necessary," he managed after a long pause. "Tifa and I should be getting home."

"But--" started Tifa, and then glared at Zack for kicking her ankle.

'Watch this,' Zack mouthed, tipping his head toward Cloud. He grinned.

"Would it be too much trouble to wait until she's finished her dinner?" Cloud asked, sounding like he really cared what her father thought, and really did feel sorry for putting him through any trouble. "And I do apologize again for not thinking to call you at lunch, to let you know your daughter was safe."

Tifa's father finally dropped into the empty chair and ran a hand over his sweaty face. "Um, Mr. Strife, was it? I suppose I can wait a few minutes."

"Thank you," said Cloud, and smiled.

Mr. Lockhart blinked. Tifa and Zack exchanged a knowing look, and Zack fluttered his fingers surreptitiously over his heart. "He gets _everyone_ like that, even when he doesn't mean to," he said, leaning around the table corner to whisper in Tifa's ear. "You should see him at court, surrounded by all these lacy idiots and looking like he's a heartbeat from running away or pulling out his sword. Funniest thing _ever_... especially the time when two of the idiots tried to fight a duel over which one of them he'd really been smiling at."

"So what happened?" Tifa whispered back.

"Turks broke it up before Cloud stopped laughing. See, technically, it's an insult to claim the favor of the royal family without their express consent -- even if 'favor' is something as stupid as a smile -- so both the idiots got banned from Midgar for a year and their families had to pay fines." Zack sighed. "It was seriously funny, though, especially since neither one knew a damn thing about actual fighting."

Tifa pictured high nobles, in the latest Midgar fashions, fighting a formal duel. They'd probably use rapiers so fancy and decorated they'd be next to useless in a real battle, and issue longwinded challenges that any real fighter would interrupt halfway through for the advantage of surprise. She wondered if they'd faint at a minor wound.

"Zack? It's not polite to exclude guests from the conversation," Cloud said. "Since you seem to be finished, go ask Mrs. Firth for a cup of tea. Oolong preferably, but almost anything will do so long as it's hot and not coffee."

Zack rolled his eyes, but he stood and headed into the inn.

Tifa's father took advantage of his absence to begin questioning Cloud. "So, Mr. Strife, you and your ward are staying at the old Shinra mansion. They haven't rented that place for years -- how is it that you acquired tenancy?"

Tifa slumped in her chair, wishing her father weren't so hideously blunt. It was especially embarrassing since Cloud _owned_ the mansion. She wondered if he'd explain that, or if he wanted to keep his blood secret.

"Family connections," Cloud said. Amusement lurked in his eyes, but he kept his face admirably straight. "I needed to get Zack out of Midgar before he did anything unfortunate -- he's a fine young man, but he chafes under court manners, as many teenagers do -- and Nibelheim seemed like an ideal place to both let him burn off some excess energy and teach him to socialize in a structured community."

Cloud folded his hands on the table and leaned slightly toward Mr. Lockhart, as if confiding in a fellow adult. "To be honest, I'm afraid some of Zack's problems are my own fault, for not helping him find other friends when he was younger, and I hope that you and the people of Nibelheim will make him feel welcome. As I mentioned before, I'm extremely grateful to Tifa for befriending him this morning. She gave him an excellent first impression of your town."

"Well, Tifa's a fine girl," said Mr. Lockhart, wavering between pride, opportunism, and the remnants of his anger. "I'm sure Nibelheim is a much better place for a young fellow than Midgar, and we'll all be glad to help you settle in."

"Wonderful," said Cloud. "And now, since Tifa seems to be finished with her dinner, I won't delay you any further. I look forward to seeing you both in the future. Perhaps Tifa could stop by the mansion for lunch tomorrow?" He smiled again.

"Lunch, fine," Tifa's father said, looking a bit dazed. "Good evening, Mr. Strife. Tifa, come along." He stood and looked expectantly at her.

Tifa cast a longing glance toward the inn, hoping for Zack to come out and save her somehow, but the door remained stubbornly closed. Cloud made little shooing gestures behind the cover of his bowl, where her father couldn't see. Tifa sighed. She'd wanted to stay with Zack and Cloud, even if that meant sleeping where ghosts might drift through the walls and touch her, but at least her father wasn't angry anymore, and she had permission to go back to the mansion tomorrow.

"Bye, Cloud. Tell Zack I'll see him later," she said, and followed her father down the street.

\---------------

Halfway home, her father cleared his throat. "These Strifes seem like reasonable people -- I'm sorry I didn't trust you earlier -- and they must have good connections. What have you learned about them?"

Tifa rapidly considered all the things she could tell him... and locked them away. They weren't her secrets to spill. "They didn't talk much about themselves, but I think Cloud's nobility. He adopted Zack a while ago, as his heir, and they live in Midgar. I think they're rich, but they don't make a big deal about it. Cloud grew up somewhere in the Nibel mountains, but Zack's from Midgar. That's all."

"Ah." Her father drummed his fingers against his thigh, considering. "I want our town to make a good impression -- perhaps they'll be willing to sponsor the nature tours, or revive the plan to make the glitter caves into a royal park." Then he smiled and tapped her nose, the way he used to do before the accident. "I think Zachary Strife likes you, princess. You could do a lot worse..."

" _Dad!_ " Tifa clenched her hands and reminded herself that she was a trained martial artist -- she was in control of her impulses -- and she wouldn't hit her father, no matter how much he insulted her. "I'm not going to get married just because a guy has money or a title! I'm going to have my own life! And Zack's too goofy, anyway, not like--"

"Like his guardian?" her father finished when Tifa snapped her mouth shut. She flushed, and he laughed. "Cloud Strife is probably a bit beyond your reach, Tifa, but you're still young. It's all right to have big dreams. Just remember that most dreams don't ever become reality; the world isn't that kind."

"Then the world needs to change," Tifa muttered, thinking about the dead demons and whatever Cloud had found in the mansion basement.

"And you'll be the one who changes things?" her father said, leading her up the steps to their front porch. He unlatched the door and flicked on the lights, and stood aside to let Tifa into the house. "That's a good dream. It's unlikely to come true, but if you dream big, even your failures will be interesting. Now go finish the chores you ought to have done this afternoon, and get some sleep. You want to keep making a good impression on the Strifes, after all."

"Whatever," Tifa said, and hurried upstairs to clean the bathroom.

\---------------

She had already changed into her pajamas and switched off her bedroom light when it occurred to her that she didn't have to wait until tomorrow to see Zack and Cloud again. Her father would be in his study with the door shut, going over accounts, reports, and complaints for the next town meeting, and he never checked on her once he'd said goodnight. She could sneak out, leave a note by the coffee-maker claiming she'd eaten breakfast early and left for a walk, and spend the night at the mansion without anyone ever knowing.

Tifa changed into tomorrow's clothes, stuffed her pajamas into a pillowcase, grabbed a hairbrush and toothbrush (she didn't believe Zack actually brushed his hair, and sharing toothbrushes was gross), and sneaked down the stairs to the cellar, pulling her summer jacket off its hook on her way.

The network of tunnels that connected Nibelheim and doubled as roads during midwinter were more like extensions of people's basements than proper roads -- instead of running under the streets, with each basement having an access tunnel, they'd been dug piecemeal from house to house, so they twisted and linked in unexpected ways. Tifa knew them more or less by heart, but she made sure to carry a flashlight with her. You never could tell when people might rearrange their cellars, after all, and she didn't want to trip and call attention to herself.

It took half an hour of careful travel before she reached the surface access at the edge of town, near the road to the mansion. She lifted the trapdoor, checked to make sure nobody was watching, and set off into the woods.

This was probably very stupid -- the wolves were solitary during the summer, and didn't usually attack humans, but there was always that off chance -- but she _had_ to get out of her house. Tifa wasn't sure why that need was suddenly so strong, but she had to see Zack and Cloud again, had to talk to someone who hadn't spent all his life in Nibelheim, someone who might understand why she wanted to get _out_.

Darkness pooled under the trees and fell thickly across the road, but the sky was clear and the moon nearly full, and the stars shone bright and steady through the crisp mountain air. After a minute, Tifa switched off her flashlight; it would probably attract more attention than she wanted, and on the road she could see well enough without it.

Soon she reached the fence around the mansion, and hesitated, one hand on the gate. The mansion, which sagged wearily during the day, seemed grander and more foreboding at night, as if shadows helped shore up its walls and might reach out to twine around her ankles at any second.

To her left, down the fence, a twig snapped.

Tifa dashed through the gate and up to the door without looking to see if the ghost of the half-eaten scientist was following her.


	7. Chapter 7

She felt like she'd been pounding on the door for hours when it swung open and her fist nearly smashed into Zack's face.

He ducked, shone his flashlight in her eyes, and said, groggily, "Tifa? What the fuck?"

"Let me in, I heard a ghost, let me in, let me in!" She shoved past him and slammed the door; after a few tense seconds, she let out her breath and relaxed. Whatever she'd hear out there wasn't following her in through the door, and if there were ghosts wandering inside, at least she'd have Zack to help her.

"I don't _believe_ you," said Zack. "You're crazy enough to sneak out and walk here in the dark, with the planet only knows what sort of monsters hiding in the woods, and then you go all wussy over funny noises and say it's a ghost? You are so totally weird... in a cool way, really!" he added, dancing away from Tifa's kick.

He scrubbed a hand through his spiky hair and sighed. "Cloud's not going to be happy, but if you have a good excuse he'll probably let you stay the night. Come on, we're sleeping upstairs."

Tifa followed Zack through the empty, dusty rooms to a flight of stairs. The bannister rail was ornately carved, but instead of keeping it oiled and polished, someone had painted the wood white. Now the paint was peeling, letting splintery wood peek through. Zack kept his flashlight on the steps, letting Tifa aim hers around the stairwell, glinting off picture frames and sliding over the faded rose-print wallpaper.

"This must have been so beautiful once upon a time," she said, her voice involuntarily sinking to a whisper.

"It was, I think, though I don't remember very clearly," said Cloud, his voice drifting unexpectedly from the darkness at the top of the stairs. Tifa swung her flashlight toward him -- his eyes flashed brilliant blue in the glare -- and then lowered it so she didn't blind him. "It probably still looked good when Rosa and Vert lived here -- nobody ever accused them of lacking taste, whatever other faults they had, and I recognize this wallpaper from their rooms in Roland's summer palace. But the scientists and decades of neglect..." Cloud sighed. "It's going to cost a fortune to renovate."

"Not like you can't afford it," Zack said, leaping the last three stairs and attempting to punch Cloud's shoulder.

"That's not the point," Tifa told him. "He shouldn't _have_ to fix his house, because nobody should have messed it up in the first place. Speaking of which," -- she turned to Cloud -- "why didn't you hire caretakers once the scientists left? It wouldn't be nearly so rundown if somebody had come by even once a month."

Cloud looked slightly sheepish. "I forgot." Then he frowned. "But I'm sure I didn't forget inviting you here tonight. In fact, I specifically sent you home with your father until midday tomorrow."

Tifa fidgeted. "I did go home. But Zack invited me to stay the night, and I left a note so my dad will just think I went out for a morning walk -- he won't notice I'm gone tonight. I brought stuff with me, and it's really dark out, and I heard the scientist's ghost at the fence..." She did her best to look pitiful; it went against the grain, but she was _not_ going back to her father's house.

Cloud's expression said that he saw right through her, but he just sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose like he had a headache. "Fine. But if you hear ghosts in the middle of the night, remember that this was your idea, and don't come running to me."

She wouldn't have gone running to him anyway -- she wasn't a _child_ \-- but now Tifa straightened her back and stared defiantly at Cloud. "I'll be so quiet you won't even know I'm here," she promised.

"Somehow, I doubt I'll forget this conversation before I get back to sleep," Cloud said dryly, but he smiled just a little as he turned and walked down the hall to a dark room, and closed the door behind himself.

Beside Tifa, Zack let out his breath explosively. "Lucky! You caught him in a good mood, considering, or maybe he's just going funny again. Cloud doesn't care about most people, but he took me in for no reason, so... I think you hit the jackpot. He likes you." He grinned at Tifa and punched her lightly in the shoulder. "Come on, I'll show you where I'm sleeping, and we'll drag in another mattress for you."

Cloud liked her?

Tifa walked on air all the way to Zack's room.

\---------------

The mansion creaked and moaned softly in the night -- boards shifting against each other, branches skreeking against walls and windows, wind whistling through cracks -- and the darkness magnified the noises instead of muffling them into familiarity the way Tifa's house did. Zack huddled on a mattress beside her, out like a light, but she couldn't sleep. Every time she started to drift off, some squeak or draft pulled her mind back from the shore of dreams.

They'd burned the demons' corpses, which was as good as a burial if you did it respectfully. Cloud had promised to make minimal restitution, and she and Zack had sworn to make sure, somehow, that things like this wouldn't happen again, which ought to have settled any angry spirits. But she could still feel something not right about the mansion, something upset, something empty and _waiting_.

Maybe sneaking out hadn't been such a good idea.

After what felt like forever, but was probably only an hour or so, Tifa slid out from under the musty summer blanket and grabbed her flashlight, heading downstairs for the bathroom she'd used in the afternoon. There was probably one closer upstairs, but Zack hadn't remembered to show her, and she didn't trust it to be clean in any case.

The stairs were solidly built; one or two groaned softly under her feet, but most were silent as she crept downstairs. She shone her flashlight down at her feet, letting the light pool close around her, trying to draw as little attention from the gathered darkness as she could. Something hovered out there, waiting -- she could feel its attention prickling at the back of her neck.

Tifa used the toilet and washed her hands as quickly as possible, keeping the flashlight aimed well away from the cracked mirror. Then she hurried back to the stairs -- the longer she was alone in the mansion, the more nervous she got, and the more she wanted Zack's presence, even if he was asleep like a useless lump. He was alive, and she needed to see another living person right now.

She hesitated at the top of the stairs, wondering if she ought to check on Cloud, to make sure nothing had happened to him. That wasn't running like a scared baby -- it was just being cautious -- and if she was very quiet, he wouldn't even wake up. She was sure he could take care of himself, but just because people could stand on their own didn't mean it wasn't nice to help out now and then. And she really didn't want anything to happen to Cloud...

Tifa looked down the hall toward Zack's room and her waiting bed. She bit her lip. Then she turned the other way.

She held her pajama sleeve over the flashlight so the cloth hid most of the light, leaving just enough for her to see the floor. That probably wouldn't wake Cloud or attract any ghosts. Then she set out down the hallway. She wasn't sure which door led to Cloud's room -- she hadn't been able to see clearly in the darkness -- so Tifa tried all of them, twisting the knobs and inching them open just enough to peek inside. 

The first two rooms, closest to the stairs, seemed to have been used as offices. Someone had emptied them in a rush -- desks and filing cabinets stood at odd angles to the walls, and their drawers had been pulled out and taken away. The third room, on the left, was filled with furniture -- dressers, a wardrobe, a vanity table, piles of mattresses, and a dismantled bed frame. She nearly missed Cloud in all the mess. He'd laid a mattress on the floor, between the wardrobe and the window, and curled up to sleep -- one hand vanished under his pillow and the other clutched a corner of his blanket. Moonlight from the open window turned his skin white and his hair silver. He looked peaceful, and very young.

Tifa switched off the flashlight and watched him sleep, her breath slowing to match his. Cloud really was from Nibelheim, she realized. He was just fine with the crisp night air -- his blanket didn't even cover his bare shoulders -- unlike Zack, who'd dragged a second blanket from a storage chest and wrapped himself up in a makeshift cocoon. "It's chilly!" he'd said in response to Tifa's funny look. If Zack thought a nice summer night was chilly, she wondered how he'd deal with a mountain winter.

Cloud twitched slightly, frowning, and Tifa realized she'd been staring at a trained fighter -- she didn't have any hostile intent, but she was probably setting off some of his subconscious alarms anyway. She backed out and shut the door before he could wake up.

She felt calmer after watching Cloud, but she was still too jittery to lie down again -- she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. Maybe she could wake Zack and talk to him for a while? Friends could do things like that, right?

But they hadn't been friends long, and Zack thought she was stupid for worrying about ghosts; he'd probably be annoyed. She usually tried not to listen to her father, but he'd told her over and over that she shouldn't presume on any connections until she was sure of them, and he was probably right about that. She'd let Zack sleep.

Instead, she could explore the rest of this hallway. If she checked all the rooms, she'd tire herself out a little, make sure there weren't any nasty surprises, and maybe find a bathroom without a cracked mirror -- that would be nice.

Feeling better now that she had a plan, Tifa switched the flashlight back on and set out down the hall.

The first room she looked into was clearly another office for the scientists -- it had the same style desks and filing cabinets, with the same missing drawers, as well as coils of electric wire and phone cords thrown in a corner. The next room was a bathroom, complete with layers of dust, a mildewed shower, an uncracked mirror -- Tifa silently thanked the angels for small favors -- and a miraculously clean toilet. The seat lid was up, of course; men never remembered to put toilet seats down, even when they were expecting guests.

The third room was a bedroom with wide, curtained windows and delicately carved furniture. For some reason, it had been left untouched -- except for the dust, it looked like someone might come down the hallway and sleep here every night. Tifa shone her flashlight on the canopy bed, wondering if Rosa Shinra had slept here, or if this beautiful furniture had been used by the local women who'd worked here as maids. Motion caught the corner of her eyes, and she watched the curtains swirl inward, stirring dust as they dragged across the floorboards. As the fabric shifted, Tifa saw that the windows were really doors to a balcony, and they were wide open.

She walked toward them, intending to pull them shut.

Then she saw the ghost.


	8. Chapter 8

She'd heard stories all her life, but Tifa had never actually seen a ghost before. For half a second, she thought it was only a strange woman standing on the balcony, looking over the sprawl of the ground floor, the fenced-in yard, and the brooding forest.

Then she realized she could see the still-smoldering remnants of the demons' pyre _through_ the woman's body and flowing dress. And the moon was on the other side of the mansion -- this room should have been in shadow, not lit by a weird, greenish glow.

She couldn't breathe to scream.

The curtains stirred again, and the ghost woman turned to face the room, staring right at Tifa. "Have you seen my son?" she asked.

Tifa backed toward the door.

"My son," the ghost said, gliding through the curtains, one hand pointing in accusation. "My only son. They stole his body, and I couldn't find his soul. What have you done with my son?"

Her son? This was Lady Shinra. And Tifa didn't know any magic -- she couldn't fight a ghost. "I don't know anything about your son," she managed to say through her fear. "Nobody knows what happened to your son. But it's been thousands of years since the Angels' War -- he must have died by now. He's probably waiting for you."

If the ghost went into the lifestream to look, Tifa would be safe.

Lady Shinra shook her head, her eyes closed in denial. "He isn't dead. I've looked and looked, but he's never there. Someone is hiding him! Where are you hiding him? You've twisted my house around me, but I'll find him."

Her eyes snapped open again as she glided closer to Tifa; they glowed an eerie, brilliant blue, as if lit from within by lightning. The color struck a note of familiarity in the back of Tifa's mind, but she couldn't place it.

"I'm not hiding your son," she said again, reaching for the door. "I don't know any magic, so I couldn't hide people's souls if I wanted to! And I've never been to this house before -- I'm not the one who messed it up. It was your family who did that!"

"My family?" Lady Shinra said, drifting to a halt and tilting her head in confusion.

"Yes, your family!" Tifa said, anger and resentment burning through both her fear and her good judgment. "Your family who hunt demons for fun, and who let mad scientists breed monsters in the basement. If you're mad about that, go yell at Cloud, not me!"

Lady Shinra's eyes flashed. For a bare second color washed through the green glow that surrounded her -- pale pink in her high-boned face, gold in her hair -- and the familiarity of her eyes suddenly connected.

"Cloud?" Tifa whispered. " _Cloud_ is your son?"

"You do know him. Where is he? Give him to me!" Lady Shinra stretched out her hands, beseechingly.

Tifa leaned against the doorframe in shock and pinched herself to make sure she wasn't caught in a surreal nightmare. The ghost and the room refused to vanish. "Cloud Strife is your son. That means he was born before the Shinra took the throne. That means he's thousands of years old, and he's still alive." The world spun around her, settling into new shapes and relationships. "He's not human. He can't be human. What _is_ he?"

"His father's son," Lady Shinra said, right next to Tifa. One cool, insubstantial hand pressed against Tifa's shoulder. "Please, take me to him. I've waited so long."

"But you're a ghost," Tifa said. And you didn't take ghosts to see friends; all ghosts were unstable and dangerous, no matter what their reasons for evading the lifestream and rebirth. Lady Shinra had been waiting since the Angels' War. There was no telling how unbalanced she'd become.

What if she tried to kill Cloud, so he could go to the lifestream with her?

"I won't hurt him," Lady Shinra said, as if she could read Tifa's mind. "I promise. If he's sleeping, I won't even wake him. I simply need to know that he has people who care for him and a place to belong. Your concern tells me that he has friends, at least."

Tifa bit her lip, but Lady Shinra's eyes, so brilliant and sad in her delicate face, were exactly like Cloud's eyes; Tifa couldn't leave them empty and in tears. "All right. I'll show you where he's sleeping. But you'd better keep your promise."

\---------------

Being trailed down a dark hallway by a faintly glowing ghost was not a reassuring experience. Tifa flinched at every creak in the floorboards, and kept expecting an army of the dead demons' ghosts to pour through the walls, or Zack to burst from his room and startle Lady Shinra into draining his life.

Her heartbeat sounded loud as thunder in her ears, perhaps because the ghost behind her made no sound at all, not even a whisper of skirts against the carpet or the soft rhythm of breath stirring the air. Lady Shinra's hand on her wrist felt like frozen smoke.

"This room," Tifa whispered after they'd passed the staircase and the two abandoned offices. She pushed open the door and pointed to the floor where Cloud lay, between the piles of furniture and the open window. Moonlight spilled across his face. "See?"

Something sharp and tingling shot through Lady Shinra's hand, jolting against Tifa's skin. "Oh," the ghost said, reaching forward. "Oh, Cloud."

In his sleep, Cloud shifted and his hand groped out from under the covers, searching for the sword Tifa suddenly noticed beside his mattress.

"Out. Now." Tifa shut the door and hastily sneaked back down the corridor to the bedroom where she'd met Lady Shinra. The ghost followed, slowly, looking back over her shoulder toward the moonlit room.

\---------------

"He hasn't changed," Lady Shinra murmured as Tifa shut the bedroom door behind them. "All this time and he looks the same as the day the hunting party brought his corpse into the front hall. If he hadn't moved, I would have thought I was remembering that again, still caught in the same endless nightmare."

Tifa opened her mouth to offer sympathy, but clicked her teeth shut without speaking as the ghost's words struck home.

Cloud's _corpse?_

"But Cloud's alive," Tifa said, walking over to sit on the canopy bed. A puff of dust rose from the star-speckled counterpane and twinkled in Lady Shinra's faint, greenish aura. "How could you see his corpse if he's alive? There aren't any spells to raise the dead."

Lady Shinra lifted her hands in a helpless shrug. "I assume it's his father's blood, but I don't know. All I know is that he died -- an accident, they said, a stray arrow at the wrong time -- and I had nothing left. My first husband was dead, my second husband had cast me aside and refused to let me raise my daughter, and now my son was taken from me as well. I thought I might as well follow Cloud... only he wasn't there. And there _are_ spells to trap souls.

"I fought my way back only to find that he wasn't here, either; I'd lost nearly a decade in the lifestream, and Cloud had long since left Nibelheim. I couldn't search for him -- if I stray too far from my place of death, I lose my grip on this world. All I could do was make my presence known and wait." Lady Shinra shrugged again. "I think I may have gone mad several times through the years, and I'm afraid that I'm out of practice talking to people. I apologize for frightening you."

Tifa fiddled nervously with her hair, twisting the strands around and around her fingers. "It's okay. I wasn't really scared. So Cloud's father was a demon?" Some demons had nearly miraculous healing powers, after all, so you could slice them open and an hour later they'd get up like nothing had happened. If you mixed that with demons' naturally long lives, maybe that could explain a person living for thousands of years?

Lady Shinra smiled. "Cloud is the only person who has the right to ask about his father. Don't be nosy." She settled on a delicate birdseye maple chair by the door and folded her hands in her lap. "However, if you'll forgive my own rudeness, will you tell me about my son?"

Tifa twisted her hair harder, accidentally breaking several strands. "Um. I only met him yesterday, so I don't know him that well. Zack could tell you more -- Zack's his heir, Cloud adopted him a while ago, I guess. But I know that Cloud's rich, and he's probably important -- he knows the royal family pretty well -- but he's not arrogant."

Lady Shinra leaned forward, eagerly, and Tifa looked aside, uncomfortable as the focus of such intense interest. She wondered what else to say. "Um. He listened to me when I talked. He answered my questions. He cares about Zack and about doing the right thing. Um. He's bad at fire magic, he drinks tea a lot, and he's really good at talking to people and getting them to do what he wants without arguing. I think he's seen a _lot_ \-- sometimes he sounds cynical, or maybe just tired and kind of sad -- but I don't think he'd just sit back and not try to change things.

"Um. Zack said that Cloud used to be a mercenary a long time ago, but he probably doesn't do that anymore. He spends time at court, and he knows how to act there, but he says most of that stuff is stupid." Tifa drummed her fingers against her thigh, considering. "I think he might be the lord of Nibelheim, and if he is, he doesn't collect any tithes and stuff; we just pay the annual tax on the mines, and that goes straight to the king so Cloud wouldn't have any say in it." And that was all, unless Lady Shinra wanted to hear about how Cloud's hair looked like late afternoon sunlight on distant mountain peaks, or how a person could drown in his eyes, and that wasn't the sort of thing you told somebody's mother.

Tifa shrugged. "That's all I know. I'd like to learn more -- I think he's planning to stay in Nibelheim for a while, so we can both get to know him. Um. I'm Tifa Lockhart, by the way."

Tifa looked up toward Lady Shinra, wondering how she'd taken her rambling.

Lady Shinra smiled as she wisped into invisibility, color and light unraveling like timeworn cloth. "Thank you. He will be all right. Now I can rest."

"Don't go!" Tifa said, lunging forward to grasp intangible shoulders. "You can't go without talking to Cloud! You're his _mother_ \-- what am I supposed to tell him?"

Lady Shinra's fingers pressed against Tifa's hand for a fleeting second. Faintly, so softly Tifa almost thought she was imagining the words, she said, "He doesn't need me anymore. He hasn't searched for me the way I longed for him. He's alive; he's moved on. There's no point in teasing him with false reunions." And there was nobody in the chair, nothing but a fading green glow.

Tifa clutched empty air and wondered why she was crying.


	9. Chapter 9

Zack found Tifa in Lady Shinra's room the next morning, curled up on the dusty counterpane with her fist pressed against her mouth. "Hey. Are you okay?" he said, shoving gently at her knees.

Tifa blinked dried tears from her eyes and shook her head.

"Want to talk about it?"

Tifa shook her head again.

Zack shrugged. "Later, then. But you'd better wash up before Cloud sees you, or he'll start plotting ways to make you spill your guts for your own good. He's sneaky like that. And don't worry about the bathroom -- I hung up a spare towel for you, and I kind of scraped down the shower while I was using it, so it's not totally disgusting anymore." He held out his hand in a silent offer.

Tifa wrapped her fingers around his and let him pull her to her feet. "I bet you still forgot to put the toilet seat down."

"Oops." Zack's grin was unrepentant, and Tifa couldn't help smiling back -- a bit weakly, like her mouth didn't want to move that way, but not just putting a false face over turmoil.

"Thanks," she said, and ducked back into Zack's room to grab her clean clothes.

\---------------

Tifa couldn't bring herself to look at Cloud. That didn't matter while he was fixing breakfast -- the power had been connected overnight, probably her father's attempt to curry favor -- because he had his back turned to the table while he boiled porridge and scrambled half a dozen eggs. But once they sat down, and she still looked down at her plate or off to the side when he tried talking to her...

"Did something happen last night?" Cloud asked.

"No!" Tifa said. She pushed her eggs around her plate, trying to convince herself to eat them.

Cloud tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. "Contrary to popular opinion, being old doesn't automatically make people stupid. What's wrong, Tifa?"

"Told you," Zack muttered, and Tifa kicked his ankle under the table.

She couldn't tell Cloud about his mother's ghost. She just couldn't. But she had to say _something_ \-- and it had to be convincing. What else was she really upset about?

There was an obvious answer to that question.

"It's my dad," she said, and she didn't even have to fake the awkward tone in her voice. "Um. See, he probably won't figure out that I snuck out last night, but he might. And then he'll be mad, because he tries to act like a good father and worry about me, even though he doesn't ever try to talk to me and find out what I really want and stuff. And, well, you were being all nice to him yesterday and I was afraid you might tell him what I did. I had a nightmare about it."

Tifa glanced up at Cloud's face and did her best to look woebegone. She hadn't practiced that expression for years, not since her mother died and she realized she had to protect herself because nobody else was going to bother anymore, but it came back more easily than she'd expected. "Please don't tell my dad."

Cloud sighed. "You don't have enough perspective to understand your father, and it would do you good to run up against some serious consequences to your actions, but fine. I'll keep this one secret, since you've kept mine and Zack's so far. But don't expect me to keep bending the rules for you."

"Thank you!" Tifa said.

"I told you -- he totally likes you," Zack whispered into her ear.

"Shut up," Tifa whispered back. "He's _old_ ; he wouldn't like me." No matter how much she wished he might.

Zack flicked his fingers at her ear. "I didn't mean he _likes_ you, likes you. I mean he actually _sees_ you, instead of being polite and fair and forgetting all about you the second you go away. Cloud doesn't cut slack for just anybody."

"Stop whispering and finish eating," Cloud said before Tifa could figure out how to answer Zack. "We have to bury the demons' ashes, and then I need to send secured letters to their families. Since we have no food, we need to go into town for lunch anyway -- which means we can visit your father, Tifa, and you can ask his permission to spend the afternoon with Zack."

Tifa pictured her father's usual reaction to anything she wanted to do. Then she remembered the way he'd reacted to Cloud yesterday, and the way he always sucked up to any visitors with money or social status. A tiny grin crept over her face, and she set about demolishing her breakfast for real.

\---------------

"You should borrow one of the excavating machines from the mines," Tifa grumbled as she threw another shovelful of dirt over her shoulder. "We'd be done in ten minutes. Or you should try another spell -- it's not like dirt can set the forest on fire if it gets out of hand."

"True. But a lack of soil could undermine the foundations, or make several trees fall, possibly enough to block the road," Cloud said as he used the edge of his shovel to slice through a tangle of roots. "I try to avoid magic unless all the other options are worse."

Tifa made a sour face. Cloud had to have studied magic pretty seriously -- nobody got much further than Tinder and Point-Me without spending actual time and effort on lessons and meditation, and his fire spell had been strong even before it went out of control -- but what was the point of knowing cool spells if you never used them?

"It doesn't matter in any case," Cloud continued, "because we're finished digging. Start scooping the bones and ashes into the buckets and tip them into the grave. I'm going to find stones for a cairn; it won't be much of a memorial, but it's better than nothing."

Zack jumped out of the wide, shallow grave and pointed his shovel at Cloud. "No fair! You're making us do all the hard stuff while you goof off in the woods."

"I know how to deal with the animals in the forest. You don't, and I'd prefer not to annoy Tifa's father by letting her wander around alone," Cloud said, plucking the shovel from Zack's hands and jabbing it upright into the ground. "Get to work." 

"Totally not fair," Zack muttered as Cloud vaulted neatly over the fence and vanished into the trees. "Okay, I'm a city brat, but I'm not stupid, and you don't need protection either, Tifa."

Tifa bit her lip. That was mostly true, but... "Dragons avoid people, and one wolf isn't usually a threat -- unless they're in packs, they like easier prey -- but nobody can predict the monsters. There's a reason most hunters die young."

Zack scrubbed a dirt-streaked hand through his hair. "Man, every time I think I have this place figured out, you and Cloud spring a new twist on me. On the other hand, I bet you'd be just as lost in Midgar -- you'd end up robbed or dead in a day -- so at least _that's_ fair."

"Is Midgar really so awful?" Tifa asked as they headed toward the remnants of the pyre. "I want to get away from Nibelheim. Everything feels so small here, and people always know everybody's secrets, and nobody bothers to see _me_ , just what they think I ought to be. I thought Midgar would be better. Master Zangan hates the Shinra, but he always makes Midgar sound so exciting when he tells stories."

"Yeah, if skipping town half an hour before the Turks track you down is what you're looking for, I think Zangan had exciting covered." Zack's smile twisted wryly and then faded as he shoveled bones and ashes into a bucket. "Seriously, people are people -- you always get good and bad mixed together -- but Midgar's not a friendly place. There are so many people, and there isn't always enough food or money to go around, so a lot of people take what they need from everyone else instead of earning it fair and square. What the yakuza don't pocket, the Shinra take as taxes.

"And you can't complain -- you never know who's planted bugs and cameras, and even if you know how to fritz spy-tech with magic, there are always snitches willing to rat you out for a bit of money. If you badmouth the yakuza, you might lose your home or your business. If you badmouth the Shinra, the Turks come for you. If you're lucky, they kill you. Less lucky, and you'll end up with no clothes, no money, and a half-broken body -- easy prey for everyone else. _Really_ unlucky, and you just disappear -- there are stories about what the king's sorcerers and scientists do with slum rats nobody will miss."

Zack dumped a bucketful of bones into the grave. "It's not always that bad -- you learn how to work the system, and if you have a gang or a neighborhood watch, you get protection against the sharks -- but if you don't know what to look out for, you'll get eaten alive as sure as if you tried hunting a dragon with nothing but a butter knife."

"Oh," Tifa said, tipping a load of ashes to sift over the bones. "How do you know that? I thought you were mostly at court."

Zack turned the bucket end over end in his hands. "I told you Cloud adopted me, right? Before that, I was a slum rat. I think I was about six when I met him. I didn't trust him for months, and then it took another few years until I really settled into his place instead of just crashing there when I needed a bolt hole. I thought I could beat the system on my own, but I slipped up and got indentured to one of the yakuza clans. Cloud found out when I didn't visit him for a couple months; he cut a deal with my boss and gave me his name to keep me safe."

He shrugged. "I just wanted someone to watch my back -- the title and the court attendance are the price for hanging with Cloud. Court's pretty stupid, but you always get enough to eat, and at least nobles are polite when they're plotting to kill you. Plus, now the Turks are on _my_ side." Zack pulled a shaky grin from his pocket and tossed the bucket into the air. "So it all works out, right?"

"Yeah," Tifa said, catching the bucket and handing it back to him. "It worked out."

\---------------

They finished filling and covering the grave by noon. Cloud drew a knife from a boot sheath and sliced open a section of the fence, wide enough to roll a dozen large stones into the yard. They made an uneven rectangle over the bare earth -- ugly, but enough to keep out scavengers, and an unmistakable sign that someone had died and hadn't been forgotten.

"May the earth welcome you home and the lifestream wash away your sorrows," Cloud murmured as he rolled the last stone into place. "You died with honor, and your families will soon know of your fate."

The air swirled. Unnaturally cold eddies whispered over the stones, danced around the three people, and then subsided, apparently satisfied. Tifa shivered.

"Was that a ghost?" Zack asked as they headed inside to wash up.

"Not a true ghost -- a full manifestation includes sight and sound, not just a bit of wind -- but that was definitely more than a simple death imprint," Cloud said. "The sudden temperature drop is a sign of restless spirits."

Zack nodded, and then spun around, scattering water from his soapy hands. "Hey! Is that why you feel like ice when--"

" _Zachary_."

"Sorry!" Zack turned back to the sink, flushing. "But I'm right, aren't I? I totally am."

Tifa looked between Zack and Cloud, wondering what on earth they were talking about. Why would Cloud feel like a ghost? He was immortal, or something awfully close, but he was alive -- he breathed, he ate, he slept, and his hands had been warm and solid when he'd touched her.

Maybe Cloud was being haunted? That might explain why he and Zack weren't freaked out by staying in a haunted mansion... but no, Zack clearly hadn't seen any ghosts or he wouldn't have asked about the spirit wind at the demons' grave. Maybe he was a medium? But that didn't make sense either, since mediums had to use magic and Cloud didn't like using magic. Or maybe he really was a mercenary, and sometimes he forgot to do purification rituals before he--

Wait. Last night, Lady Shinra had said she'd seen Cloud's corpse. Tifa had assumed that was a mistake -- that Lady Shinra had been so upset at seeing Cloud mangled that she'd decided he was dead instead of just injured -- but what if she'd been telling the absolute literal truth? What if Cloud had died... and then come back to life?

Wouldn't that make him a monster?

"Tifa? Are you feeling all right?" Cloud's voice and eyes showed nothing but honest concern. "I know dealing with death can be troubling, but there's nothing more we can do for the victims. And I promise not to tell your father where you spent the night."

Tifa twitched. "I'm fine, really I am! I trust you!" She _did_. Really she did. So what if he wasn't human? So what if he might be undead? He was still a good person. Really he was. Plenty of people got mixed up in tainted magic and didn't let it twist their minds... even if she'd never heard of any effects as unnatural as reversing death.

Tifa clenched her hands behind her back to keep them from shaking.

"I'm honored by your faith in me," Cloud said, with a slight bow, managing to seem graceful and courtly despite the streak of dirt on his face and the dishtowel in his hands. "I'll do my best to be worthy of that trust."

"Stop being chivalrous," Zack said, elbowing him in the side. "You'll make her go all girly and drippy."

"A fate worse than death, I assume," Cloud said dryly, and draped the damp towel over Zack's head. He smiled innocently at Zack's outraged yelp and offered a small shrug to Tifa. "He's young and stupid. Please forgive him."

Slowly, Tifa unclenched her hands and smiled back.

Yeah. No matter what kept him alive, Cloud was far too human to be a monster.


	10. Chapter 10

"Where will your father be at this hour?" Cloud asked as they walked down the mountain toward Nibelheim. "It would be simplest to talk to him before we eat lunch."

Tifa paused midway through tossing a pinecone at Zack and tried to remember what appointments her father had scribbled on his wall calendar for this week. "Probably at the post office -- the truck comes this afternoon, and there's always stuff that needs to be sorted out beforehand."

"Convenient. I need to get the postmaster's high security stamp on the death notifications in any case -- that and my seal should keep them safe from random inspections -- so you can talk to your father while I deal with the letters."

"You're not going to sweet-talk Mr. Lockhart for her? That's really harsh -- and after Tifa said she trusted you, too." Zack flicked a pinecone at Cloud's ear. "So much for chivalry!"

Cloud caught the pinecone as it fell, and raised one eyebrow. "Courtesy is one thing. Saving people from the consequences of their own actions is a different thing altogether. If Tifa wants her father to treat her as a responsible adult, she'll have to act like a responsible adult instead of an uncontrolled child."

Then he grinned and flicked the pinecone back, catching Zack in the middle of his forehead. "Of course, nobody needs to be responsible _all_ the time..."

The three-way pinecone fight lasted all the way into town.

\---------------

The Nibelheim post office was a storage shed with a counter, an antiquated cash register, and a small safe to hold stamps and money. It stood next to the mine office, since most correspondence was official business reports heading down to the lowlands; local mail was slow enough that it was almost easier to send word by foot from village to village.

Tifa's father and Ilsa Scour, the rail-thin postmistress, were arguing over a stack of boxes when Tifa pushed open the door. "I don't care if this Steerpike twit is the new mine supervisor -- he could be the king himself and I still wouldn't change my mind," Ilsa snapped, waving a sheet of stamps. "You can't ship boxes without paying! It undermines the integrity of the system."

"Mr. Steerpike is an ambitious and touchy man," Tifa's father said, in the loud, slow tone he used when he thought somebody was being stupid on purpose. "If we don't make everything smooth for him, he could easily raise quotas and taxes, delay requests for new equipment, or ignore safety regulations. We can write the expense off as a minor repair to the roof or something similar -- the government will pay for it either way, so what does it _matter_ whether Mr. Steerpike pays it himself, here and now?"

"It's a question of principle," Ilsa said, but she began peeling stamps and plastering them to the boxes. "Good afternoon, Tifa. Introduce your guests; it's only polite."

Tifa's father turned, startled, and then ventured a smile when he saw Cloud and Zack standing at Tifa's shoulders. "Mr. Strife, I hope you're settling in comfortably. Please excuse me for not noticing you sooner. Can I help you with anything this afternoon?" Ilsa Scour coughed, pointedly. "I'm sorry, Ilsa, these are Cloud and Zachary Strife; they're renting the old Shinra mansion. Mr. Strife, this is Ilsa Scour, our postmistress."

"Pleased to meet you," Ilsa said, adjusting her glasses. "Are you here for business, or just bringing Tifa to find her father?"

"Both, actually," Cloud said, smiling. "If you'll excuse me, Mayor Lockhart, I need to discuss some secured letters with Ms. Scour. Zack, come with me; you'll need to know how to deal with postal clearances sooner or later." He motioned Tifa subtly toward the door as he walked to the counter.

Tifa stepped outside and pointedly held the door open until her father joined her in the midday sunshine. The door swung shut with a squeal of rusted hinges, leaving the Lockharts alone with each other. Tifa glanced away, scuffing her toe over the packed dirt of the office yard.

"So... secured letters," her father ventured after a moment. "Cloud Strife _is_ here as a private citizen, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Tifa said, wondering what to do with her hands. "He just, you know, has connections. So he has a seal and everything, and I guess he doesn't like people reading his mail. If I had the money, I'd buy a seal too." She settled for crossing her arms.

"If you play your cards right, you might well have that kind of money one day... and possibly an armful of other privileges into the bargain," her father said, casting a meaningful glance toward the closed door.

Oh, that was the last stone on the slope. "I am not going to-- to _hunt_ Zack like he's a giant sack of diamonds or something! He's my _friend_. And I can get money or power all on my own if I want to -- I don't need anyone to give me stuff I can earn for myself -- not even you! I'm never going to be a proper lady, not like Mom, so stop looking for her all the time and see _me!_ "

Her shout echoed from the walls of the shed and the mine office, slowly fading into silence.

Her father drew a deep breath, and then another. "This is not the time or place for this conversation," he said, low and rough. "We'll discuss this tonight, at home. Until then, you might want to consider what you'd do for food and shelter if I didn't give them to you. And leave your mother out of our arguments."

Leave her mother out? When she haunted their house more thoroughly than any ghost, because even five years later, her father couldn't let her rest? Yeah, she would if he would... but Tifa knew better than to say that out loud.

"If you kick me out, I can stay with Cloud and Zack," she said instead. "I know they wouldn't mind."

"I said we'll discuss this _later_ ," her father snapped. "In the meantime, I have a meeting with Mr. Steerpike. Tell Ilsa I'll pay for the packages tomorrow." He strode off across the yard, his shrunken midday shadow dogging his heels.

He looked oddly worn and powerless, Tifa thought, not like the strong, decisive man who dominated her early memories. He'd lost something when her mother died. And now he'd lost her, too.

She really could leave. She didn't have to wait until he let her go. She could leave Nibelheim anytime she wanted -- just pack a bag and start walking -- and he couldn't stop her. Nothing tied her down unless she agreed to be tied.

It felt like jumping off a cliff and realizing she could fly instead of falling.

But the open sky was lonely.

Tifa ducked back into the post office in search of her friends.

\---------------

Ilsa Scour was stalking back and forth behind the counter, waving her hands wildly through the air. "-- _our_ seal -- Nibelheim's seal -- I could recognize it in my sleep. We haven't had a lord for hundreds of years -- _thousands_ of years -- and now the Shinra sell the damned tax and justice rights to a complete stranger and expect us to roll over and--"

Tifa shut the door quietly and sidled over to the far corner where Zack was watching the show. She knew better than to get in Ilsa's way when the postmistress was in a mood.

Cloud apparently lacked any sense of self-preservation. "Do us both a favor and keep this to yourself," he said, reaching across the counter to snag one of Ilsa's flailing hands. "I'm here as a private citizen, not an arm of the government. I don't expect anyone's obedience."

Ilsa yanked her hand from his grasp. "As if the nobility ever bother to govern anything. This affects all of Nibelheim, and Eigerspitze, Jotunberg, and Eifelheim as well. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't warn everybody about you!"

"How about this -- Cloud's _been_ your lord for ages already, and he's never bothered with taxes or telling you how to run your stupid town," Zack said, twirling the sack of letters in his right hand. "We only came here because he was worried about how many duels I've been getting into back home -- which is totally pointless, because I always win -- and we'll probably never come back here once the idiots at court find a new scandal to distract them from me. So stop worrying and start stamping the stupid letters."

"You've fought duels?" Tifa asked, rounding on him -- Cloud and Ilsa completely forgotten "What rules? What weapons? Why didn't you tell me? I have to take you to Master Zangan -- he's always complaining that he has no idea what new tricks people have come up with since he left Midgar. You have to show me _everything_."

Behind her, Cloud coughed. "Tifa, please let go of Zack's shirt; you're strangling him. You can badger him for details after we finish preparing the letters. And speaking of the letters..."

Tifa dropped her hands from Zack's collar and backed off, sure her face was as bright red as dragon hide. Zack drew an exaggerated breath, straightened his shirt, and tossed the bag to Cloud.

"Thank you," Cloud said. "Ms. Scour? Will you at least provisionally accept that I'm not here to interfere with your town?"

Ilsa folded her arms. "Why should I believe you? So you bought the title a few years ago instead of just last week -- that only makes me more suspicious. You should have sent notice to us! We have the right to know when our status changes!"

Cloud dragged his free hand through his hair, looking incredibly frustrated. "Fine. You want a reason to believe me? Your status never changed. I've been the lord of Nibelheim since I was ten months old -- it was my mother's price for leaving Midgar. She left local justice in the hands of the village councils, and we never collected any more money than we needed to maintain the house and stable three horses. I revoked even that tithe when I left, and it's my authority that kept you free from land and hunting taxes ever since."

"Come to think of it," he continued, "your mines shouldn't be taxed either -- I never consented to that, and I think it's still illegal for the king to levy taxes without the local lord's permission. I'll have to bring that up with the Minister of the Treasury. Will that serve as a sign of my good faith?"

"It would if I saw you make the call or write the letter," Ilsa said, "but you won't do that. You can't. Your story's impossible -- you must have stolen the seal. We haven't had a lord since the Angels' War, when Lady Shinra's son died."

Cloud glanced at Tifa as if expecting another outburst. She couldn't manage to look surprised, though -- not after she'd heard the truth from Lady Shinra's ghost -- and Cloud turned back to Ilsa with a shrug. "That's mostly true... except I didn't die. I've never quite picked up the knack." His smile twisted ruefully. "You seem to be an amateur historian, Ms. Scour. I haven't always been able to stay anonymous -- if you think about it, I'm sure you know my name."

Slowly, Ilsa's eyes widened. "That's impossible. You can't be _that_ Lord Strife. Not the one who saved the empire after Julian Silverberg's treachery and led the conquest of Wutai."

Tifa shut her mouth with an audible click. She'd known Cloud was old, and a Shinra, but somehow she'd never connected his name to the High Regent who held the empire together after the Second Succession War, or the general who won the battle of Tienzhan. That was _Cloud?_

Cloud ran a hand through his hair again, embarrassment joining frustration on his face. "I'm afraid that was me. But I swear by my sword that I have no interest in local politics, so will you please do me the favor of not spreading my secrets around?"

Ilsa nodded, speechless for the first time in Tifa's memory.

"Great!" Zack said, clapping his hands. "So, how about stamping the letters? It's already past noon, and some of us want lunch." He grabbed Tifa's hand and tugged her toward the door.

"Fine," Ilsa said, holding out her hand for the sack. "Lord-- no, Mr. Strife, you can leave those with me. We have a bargain."

Cloud bowed, and ushered the others out into the midday sun.

\---------------

"You weren't surprised," Cloud said as soon as the post office door swung shut. "Zack already knew, but when did you figure out who I am?"

Tifa flushed, Lady Shinra's ghostly face swimming in her mind's eye. She should admit the truth... but really, she couldn't tell him about that. It was too sad. How could she explain that she'd told his mother not to wake him, and that Lady Shinra hadn't even argued and tried to say goodbye?

"I don't know," Tifa lied. "I wasn't sure, but you're so familiar with Nibelheim, and you're related to the Shinra. It would be weird for a noble to grow up here if you weren't our lord, but we've never had a lord, not for ages and ages. And you knew the story about Lady Shinra and her son, and you're older than you look, and, well, I just started wondering." She walked a touch faster, watching her feet instead of daring to look at Cloud.

Zack laughed. "Busted! She totally caught you."

"I suppose I was dropping a lot of hints, now that I think about it," Cloud said. "Maybe I wanted to be caught."

"I really don't care," Tifa hurried to assure him, "just like I don't care about Zack having demon blood. You're a good person -- I just know it. It doesn't matter how old you are, or who your family is, or whether you help us with our taxes."

"If you say so," Cloud murmured. "Changing subjects, how did your talk with your father go?"

Somehow Tifa couldn't work up the energy to evade or complain like she normally would. Her father had no power over her; what was the point of lying or getting mad? "We yelled," she said, "but he'll get over it. I'll apologize; I don't care anymore. I'm going to leave Nibelheim once I'm fifteen anyway -- there's nothing he can do to stop me -- so it doesn't really matter what he does until then. I can get through it."

Zack punched her lightly in the shoulder. "That's my Mini Zangan! You show him how tough you are."

"Jerk," Tifa muttered, but she let him off without a kick. This time.

"Zack and I will probably leave before winter," Cloud said after a moment, "but until then, you can help us renovate the mansion when you need a place to retreat. I'll pay you a fair laborer's wage, and I can set up a bank account that your father can't touch. Just... don't aggravate him too much. It's wasteful to burn all your bridges."

Tifa grimaced. "I'm still going to leave. I can't change anything _here_. If you want to fix a house, there's no point redoing all the shingles when the foundation is rotten. Midgar's the foundation. That's where I have to go."

"True," said Cloud, as they rounded the corner of the inn. "But that's in the future. Don't get so caught up in your plans that you ignore the present."

"Which is lunch!" Zack said, opening the door to the scent of stew and fresh bread. "And new friends. You know, when Cloud said we were going to Nibelheim, I thought this would be the worst summer ever. I was so totally wrong. You're going to introduce me to Zangan, and show me how to hunt in the woods, and help us fix up the mansion, and all kinds of cool stuff. I can tell you all about Midgar, and once we get the computers hooked up I'll show you how to net-dive, and--" His cheerful list continued as he bounded toward the counter.

Tifa hesitated on the threshold, glancing sideways at Cloud. "Do you really think I can make a difference? I'm just one person, and it's not like I have any idea what to do. Who's going to listen to a girl from a little mountain town?"

"Everybody in the world is just one person, but somehow we manage to get things done," Cloud said, one hand holding the door open. "As for the rest... I was a boy from a little mountain town. I built a reputation despite that, and I doubt I was any more stubborn than you are. If you hold your course, I think you can win in the end."

He offered his hand to Tifa, as if she were his equal.

Tifa stepped through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, this story is set about ten years before the main Mercverse canon -- aka, the heyday of the mercenary group -- and involves some bits and pieces of world-building created by other participating writers, particularly the mentions of net-diving and Zack's backstory as an orphaned street kid. As for the direct inspiration... let's just say that I couldn't resist the chance to bend, staple, and otherwise mutilate normal game canon regarding trips to Nibelheim, because seriously, what's the point of crack AUs if you can't play around like this? *grin*


End file.
